


Parts Per Million

by hw_campbell_jr



Series: Demarcation Line [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Against the wall sex, Angst, First Time, Love at First Sight, M/M, Slow Burn, getting organized, hurt comfort, local color, part of a series, they seriously do it four times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:27:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23107732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hw_campbell_jr/pseuds/hw_campbell_jr
Summary: After the revolution, the real work begins. Markus and Connor meet again after a lengthy absence and each proves to be exactly what the other needs.
Relationships: Connor/Markus (Detroit: Become Human)
Series: Demarcation Line [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1665649
Comments: 31
Kudos: 169





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Greekhoop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greekhoop/gifts).



> This is a story for Greekhoop. She wanted me to write about these extremely gay robots who are in love, and once I met them, I couldn't resist. She also wanted me to write about how complicated it is to actually live after a revolution. I couldn't resist that either.
> 
> It is also part of a series. Two lemonparties 420 shall be picking up the mantle and continuing that.

Someone had found Connor by following a cat. There were cats everywhere in android occupied Detroit. Cats were abandoned in droves as humans fled that part of the city, cats had elected to abandon their humans in order to stay in it, cats who were probably strays already had seized their moment to reclaim the streets. A revolutionary parallel that probably wasn’t anywhere near as poignant as it seemed. Still, it was hard to say they hadn’t benefitted. The standard of living for the cats of Detroit had more or less equalized, so now all the cats looked about the same regardless of station. Forward movement in the cat class war. 

Markus wished he remembered who in particular had followed _this_ cat and told him about it, and then about Connor, because it seemed like an important thing to praise someone for. He had at the time, and he’d thanked them, but he thought he should continue to recognize them as distinct and not just forget about it. He could have remembered if he really tried - the information would be in there, he just wasn’t summoning it - and he also could have asked someone if he somehow really hadn’t logged it. But he hadn’t asked. Because it seemed like a fraction of energy he could conserve for something else. Because there would definitely be something else. Because currently, there was absolutely nothing but something else.

He knew he shouldn’t be resentful about that. This was what you got to do with freedom: make decisions. Make all of the decisions and have nobody else making them for you. Build consensus. Build a genuinely better world. It was just that the process was arduous and it was slow, and sometimes it seemed like the cats had gotten the better deal.

That occurred to him again watching two cats jump down from a window ledge and follow each other. They looked ratty but sleek. Feral but sumptuously indolent. There was probably plenty for them to eat, Markus thought, with supermarkets empty of people and an unattended mammalian universe full of easy pickings. He followed them too, in the direction of the church, a mile’s walk from the Hotel St. Regis. That was where they held HQ, which they had started referring to as Jericho, commemoratively but also out of habit. It was a habit that felt a little strange to Markus without any of his leadership in the city, but at the same time being alone here (or alone in charge at least) made it feel more important to keep. 

The streets were deserted, more or less. Other androids apparently didn’t need to roam them on cold September afternoons following cats around and looking for Connor. Markus probably didn’t either, but he’d said he would for the excuse. And he wanted to see Connor anyway. Nobody knew what he was doing at the church. Nobody knew why he was back. 

He took two phone calls in that 20 minute transit. The first was brief, it was a thirty second reminder that they needed him out on the South West border today. The second was brief too, but longer. North in Appalachia, checking in. She said she’d send updates later in the day but she didn’t want to talk about that now. Now she just wanted to connect. He could hear her frustration on the line and he sympathized with it. If he struggled to feel that there was movement here, it was harder still in the satellite cells, in the other cities. Especially in Appalachia. 

He’d entered the church after hanging up and slipping his phone back into his pocket. Cats were wandering around but otherwise the space was empty. Or at least it seemed that way for a second or two before he heard movement behind him and looked up. Connor was there after all. With his gun. 

“Connor!” Markus said. “Shit!”

Connor had already put up his hands, holding his gun out from his body and up in the air. It seemed like he’d done that instantly upon recognizing him, presumably a split second after he’d passed under the balcony to where he could be seen. “Markus,” he said. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay, just… what are you doing?”

“I heard you before I could see you. I’m sorry.”

“Would you have shot someone else?”

“No, but I… sorry.”

“Come down, okay? I need to talk to you.” 

Connor nodded. He put his gun back inside his clothing and launched himself over the side of the balcony. He landed on the floor in a crouch. Impressive to watch, even though his thin, angular body gave everything Connor did a slightly uncoordinated look. He stood up easily though - in truth there was nothing uncoordinated about Connor at all. “I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have shot you,” he said. “I wouldn’t have shot anybody.” 

“Well, thanks,” Markus said. 

“I mean that sincerely.”

“What are you doing here, Connor?”

“In the occupied city, or specifically in this church.”

“Let’s start with the city. I thought you’d gone back to the outside.”

“Yes.”

“But you’re back here?”

“Yes.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Three days?”

“Why?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Please stop apologizing. I’m glad to see you. I’m just interested in what you’re doing here in an abandoned church with…” he hadn’t really taken it in before but he did now “a _lot_ of cats.”

“Feeding them,” Connor said. “They can and have been feeding themselves but there are so many. I thought… organization. I’m not sure. They’ve started breeding. I think that will be a problem.” 

“You’re right,” Markus said, because he was. One more thing to figure out, and it hadn’t even crossed his mind. The city was crawling with animals and they were all his responsibility too. “You’re very right. Over-breeding animals could throw a lot of things off for us. They make a mess of components for one thing, and they’ll also probably start breeding disease. Which isn’t a problem for you and me, but if it spreads outside the barrier that’ll be provoking.” 

“And they’ll run out of food.”

“That too.” 

Markus put his hands on his hips to look around the church. There really were a lot of cats. He also took a breath through his nose. Funny how doing that was habitual now. He didn’t even really need to breathe but he did, he guessed, sometimes need to take a breath. Connor followed his gaze and Markus took a look at him too. He looked the same as he’d done when he’d left. Which wasn’t surprising. It was just something Markus registered. He was even wearing a fitted suit jacket with the same sort of look as the working jacket he’d worn before liberation. Something about wearing a jacket like that in a situation like this seemed unique to Connor. 

“You haven’t removed your LED,” Markus said.

“I have no reason to do that.”

“It might have fooled anyone who was especially hostile, on the outside.”

“Nobody was especially hostile, beyond the expected.”

“But you’re back here.”

“I didn’t have an alternative.”

“Weren’t you staying with your human… police partner?”

“Lieutenant Anderson. Yes.”

“So what happened?”

“Currently he has another living arrangement.”

He seemed not to notice the cat leaning against him, rubbing itself against his leg. Not until it called out. It made a little keening sound and Connor crouched down to pet it. The muscles in his hand were so finely articulated, Markus thought. A lot of effort had gone into making those hands, and it showed, really never more than when they were called to do something gentle. He supposed everybody’s hands were well made like that, but with Connor, for some reason, he thought about it. 

After a moment, the cat took off. Markus watched it bolting towards the pews. Oddly, it didn’t seem to _smell_ of cats in here. He guessed the space was just big enough. And that they were feral enough to do their cat business outside. “Sorry to hear that,” he said.

  
“Apologies are not necessary.”

“I just mean I’m sorry to hear he kicked you out.”

“He didn’t do that,” Connor said. “He left.”

“He left his own home?”

“Yes.” 

“That’s… unusual.”

“Lieutenant Anderson has a drinking problem,” Connor said. “He was finding it difficult to manage. He recused himself to a treatment facility and is pursuing recovery.”

Markus remembered Connor alluding to that drinking problem before he’d left. No detail, just a mention, in passing. It had given him pause and he’d wanted to say something. To mention that for humans these kinds of problems could be unpredictable. He hadn’t, because Connor wasn’t asking for advice, and it didn’t seem that they knew each other well enough for Markus to force it on him anyway, but he’d wanted to, and now he wished he had. “That’s probably a good thing for him.”

“Yes, I’m sure it will be.”

“So you’re here while he’s there? Then you’ll go back?” 

“No. He ended the relationship.”

Markus deliberately did not turn around to stare at him, because Connor had _not_ mentioned that particular detail, not even in passing. “I didn’t realize you had a relationship,” he said, evenly, hoping it sounded like polite engagement and not nosiness. 

“Any sustained interaction with another individual is a relationship,” Connor said. 

That wasn’t, Markus was pretty sure, what Connor had initially meant by using the term. But he let him walk it back and define it that way anyway. “Okay. Well. Good to have you back.” 

Connor made an odd face. He opened his mouth then closed it again. Then, evidently, decided to speak after all, and it seemed he’d picked up on what Markus hadn’t said. “The situation was untenable for him. He assumed it also was for me.”

“Was it?”

“He’s going to “work on himself”. That was his phrase. He means psychology. He needs assistance with psychology.”

“He told you that?”

“Yes.”

“Was he specific?”

“I haven’t given them names,” Connor said. “They probably already have names. I thought to call them different names would confuse them.”

“Excuse me?”

“The cats.”

“Right,” Markus said. “The cats.”

“I call them all ‘kitty’. Good enough.”

He smiled when he said that. It was almost winning, but slightly too awkward to get there. His changing the subject was so transparent he had to be aware of it, and the smile was clearly part of that trick, but it hadn’t been perfectly executed. At the same time that awkwardness was disarming. Cute. It made you want to be gentle with him.

Markus wanted to ask about it. About whether Connor sincerely thought he was performing subterfuge but was just too much of a person now to do it, or if he was being deliberately cute in order to hedge. Whether this was good cop or bad cop or both at the same time and which one he’d meant to do. Either answer was entirely possible, and if he asked, Connor would probably tell him. Connor would probably tell him, in fact, as if the answer was very obvious and no-one should need it pointed out. Realizing that made Markus remember exactly what it was that had made him regret Connor’s leaving for human Detroit: Connor assembled himself so methodically, so _interestingly_ , that he, Markus, couldn’t stop wanting to ask about it. And Connor hadn’t seemed to mind telling him either, at least not back then. 

It wasn’t the time to ask him a question like that now though. Regardless of how Connor had done it, the why was clearly a tender spot, and not in a way where he’d have appreciated anyone pressing on it. Markus could see that. He’d follow Connor’s lead and stick to the cats instead: “if they respond, then why not. They seem to like you.”

“I like them,” Connor said. He shrugged with his face. Then he started to say something else and then he stopped again. He turned away, but Markus thought he knew what it was.

“I’d appreciate it if you took a look at our security situation, since you’re here,” he said, so Connor didn’t have to ask him anything.

“I had assumed you’d be more than capable.”

“Yeah, but you’re a specialist. I could use your help. We could use your help.”

“You shouldn’t have come here alone, for a start,” Connor said. “You should be aware there’s pressure at the border from human civilians. I have reason to believe some of them have made the breach.”

“You’ve…”

“It would have been easy for someone to shoot you when you came into the church.”

_Someone_ , huh, he wanted to say. “What have the cats been telling you?”

“I’ve left the church periodically. And before I came here I watched the news. Don’t you watch the news? You should.”

“I watch the news, Connor. And I’m on the ground. I know there’s issues.”

“Then you know you should have security.”

“I’m asking you to be my security. Today at least. Assess it at least.”

“That would make the situation worse.”

“Why do you think that?”

Connor looked away again. He frowned. “What I need to assess is the supply situation for these cats. I’d like to know if there’s enough food in the occupied city or if there’s any cause to pursue anything from the outside. That was my plan for today.”

“We can do both things.”

“I’m sure cats are not a pressing revolution priority.”

Markus couldn’t tell if Connor was joking. Maybe a little bit, he thought. His face didn’t show it, but something in his expectant look made it seem like it might be about to. 

“Maybe they should be,” Markus said. He put out his hand to the nearest cat - one that he could see looking at them from under the pews - and crouched down beside him. “Here, kitty.”

Connor made a crooked little smile at him when he did that. Appreciative. And the cat did eventually come. Markus petted it.


	2. Chapter 2

Connor had done a circuit of the church before they left. He was counting the cats, Markus was pretty sure. He didn’t do it aloud, but he did nod in a methodical way that indicated counting. Then he’d put on some layers. A scarf and a coat. His hat pulled down over his ears. Dressing for the cold, and it was only September. Markus was also pretty sure Connor didn’t used to be able to get cold. He remembered him in the snow and how he didn’t even seem to feel it.

Strange, he thought. A steady incline towards humanity. Connor wouldn’t have liked that. Nobody liked being cold, but much more than that, Connor in particular would think of it as inefficient and pointless. He definitely wouldn’t have found it redeeming, or possibly even have known, how oddly sweet he looked in that scarf and how he’d wound it around himself in such a way he had to keep pulling it under his chin to talk. And the coat was too big for him. Markus didn’t think it was his.

What he had to keep adjusting the scarf for was the news. Specifically the reports of civilians from Michigan and neighboring states who seemed to be organizing to take Detroit back. Nothing could be proven, but Connor had theories, theories that he now supplemented with what he knew about the breaches he’d referred to in the church. He had not been permitted back to work at the Detroit police department on the outside, but he had used police department resources at home to trace what he believed to be two specific “militias,” Connor said. “Perhaps a generous term, in that I don’t think they are quite that organized. However, still dangerous.” 

Markus got the strong sense that tracking this had given Connor something to do with his days while he wasn’t working, but whatever the reason, he appreciated it. He nodded. “I want to take you out to the South West border. I’m due out there today, and as far as angry humans go, that’s been our biggest issue. There’s been a more or less permanent human protest there since we took the city and it’s hard to keep it secure.”

“I imagine.”

“Will you take a second look and see what we can maybe do differently?”

“Yes, of course.” 

“Thanks,” Markus said. “And Connor? We’re a mile away, you really didn’t think you should say hi?”

“I wasn’t aware you’d reclocated.”

That was a lie, Markus assumed. It had to be. Connor couldn’t know as much as he did about the city border defenses and not know where they housed HQ now. It was such a strange lie, though, and together with his drawing his gun at the church it seemed like there was a lot he wasn’t saying. He wanted to ask about that too, see if he couldn’t elicit that companionable frankness they’d shared in the months immediately following the revolution, but if Connor was prepared to lie about that he was probably also prepared to lie about his reasoning. 

“We can drive if you want,” Markus said. And they could. They’d eventually need to organize the cars because they were still all over the streets, left where they’d been left by humans as they occupied the city, but it did mean they could drive. Androids were not troubled by electronic locks or ignitions. Still, they should be organized. There was nothing exactly wrong with cars everywhere but there was nothing right about it either. It was mechanical clutter. Mechanical cats almost, another human legacy. 

“Are we pressed for time?” Connor asked him. 

“You want to walk? It’ll be about an hour and a half.” 

“I’m enjoying it.”

“There’s gotta be some stores on the way, we can check out what’s left in terms of cat food.” 

“Thank you.”

“We’ve really gotta think about what we’ll have to do with the breeding. I guess a city wide neutering program, which means we’ll need a database. You could help with that too, if you wanted.” 

In his head, he was making a list of every step they’d have to take to organize that. They’d have androids who could do the work, he didn’t doubt that, but he wondered if there were humans who wanted their cats back the same way they wanted their houses and businesses back. Government compensation hadn’t been enough to quell that complaint and he didn’t know what would be. They absolutely could not concede territory. 

He didn’t realize how distracted he’d gotten by that until Connor said, “you’re tired,” and his attention snapped back into the present. Connor had said it thoughtfully, looking Markus over and Markus gave him a small smile he hoped would reassure. He wanted to say yes, but instead he said, “what?”

“You’re using all of your attention for us,” Connor said. “It’s tiring you. Do you feel it physically? I don’t know how that is for you.”

“I’m not as tired as all that.”

“You are,” Connor said. “I can see it. I can register some of it in my external analysis of your systems, but I can also hear it in your voice. Is that intended as a cue to a human operator that your systems are overloaded?”

“They’re not overloaded.”

“Perhaps not yet?” Connor said. He inflected that question expectantly. His expression was even but focused. He waited. Markus wanted to change the subject but Connor’s patient attention made that difficult.

“I do feel it physically,” Markus said. “I feel more and more physically. Tactile sensation mostly, but also this. It’s essential for me to experience at least one uninterrupted system cycle per 24 hour period now, or I start to process new information more slowly. Eventually it becomes difficult to process information at all. ”

Connor frowned. “You need to sleep.”

“Kind of. Yes.” 

“Perhaps you need to sleep now.”

“I don’t need to sleep now, Connor. But thank you.”

“There’s no need to thank me. It’s an observation.” 

“I’ll sleep later.”

“Perhaps you could also… delegate.” 

Connor said that very carefully. As if he thought it might be irritating. And Markus supposed it could have been. Not from Connor though. From Connor it was too earnest, and something about it made him want to be honest. “I do delegate,” he said. “As much as I can. But with everybody in the satellite cells right now, there’s fewer people I can lean on in the city.”

“I wonder if satellite cells should have come later. After things were more established.”

“I wonder that too,” Markus said. “I wonder about everything. It seemed wrong not to assist androids in other parts of the country, but we’re lacking a leadership here. And we have to replace it but then…” 

“Then how,” Connor said. “Yes. Do we hold elections?”

“Exactly.” 

“All of your decisions are like this, aren’t they?”

“How do you mean?”

“Each one leads to more.”

That was really the best way to put it, Markus thought. Simple, succinct. Others had probably noticed it but nobody had ever said it to him. Maybe they thought it was self-evident. Certainly, nobody had ever flatly said, “you’re tired” to him like that before. He didn’t think they necessarily should, but it still set off a strange little spark inside him that Connor had. A kind of warmth. “Yes,” he said. 

Connor nodded his head, thinking. “I’d like to help if I can. I’m sorry I delayed in contacting Jericho. I did plan to. I thought… I assumed that others would prefer to minimize contact with me, but there is no reason that I can’t still assist while still respecting that.” 

“Why would you think we’d want to minimize contact?”

It looked like Connor didn’t want to answer that. Markus watched that move over his face while his chin dipped into the scarf again. But he swallowed and pulled it down and he did. “I’m not sure others are as comfortable with my work before the revolution as you seem to be.” 

“I think your unassisted liberation of the Cyberlife factory let people know where you stand.” 

“It wasn’t unassisted. Lieutenant Anderson was there.”

Odd tone in his voice there, but it was gone quickly. “Still,” Markus said. “That’s a pretty clear statement of loyalty.”

“Clear enough they will tolerate my assistance perhaps. But I doubt if that extends to my general presence.” 

“You got on just fine before you left.” 

“I didn’t, actually,” Connor said. “I’m not complaining. I’m not even objecting. I’m simply informing you that your sufferance of me is not as widely shared as you have assumed.” 

“What do you mean, you didn’t?” 

“It’s not important.”

“I think it is important, actually, Connor. If someone’s done something to you, then I want to know.”

He said that with a little more fire than he’d intended. Connor looked at him oddly, dark eyes glowing in his white face, all of it framed by his too large cold weather clothing. It made him look small. Markus didn’t know why he’d reacted like that. He gave Connor a sheepish look in return. “I don’t want any infighting,” he clarified. 

“There is no infighting,” Connor said. “Nobody’s done anything. Please, don’t concern yourself. Not everyone is willing to trust a former deviant hunter who led the human army to Jericho, and I understand that and do not see an issue.”

“But Connor…”

“I’m not sure there’s any more to say about it?” Connor said. He titled his head, his expression neutral and his tone placid but for the questioning lilt. Precisely nothing about it was firm, and yet everything was. Markus let it drop. 

“Glad you’ll help us make a security assessment.” 

“It would be my pleasure. You’re correct that it’s within the specific remit of my programming.” 

The streets were quiet here too, and Markus wasn’t surprised. He’d never noticed it until after the city had settled, but so much of the life of a city was centered around human needs. They had to eat, so they had to shop for it. They had to prepare it at home or go to a restaurant if they didn’t want to. They had to work to pay for those things. They wanted leisure in their free hours. They wanted maintenance of the things they used. And it wasn’t that androids had _nothing_ in common, but a human city wasn’t built for them. There was, it seemed, no impulse to keep every part of it buzzing in the same way. 

He thought if he had time he might take Connor to where some of the action was, in Hamtrack, in the opposite direction to the South West border. Androids were congregated there figuring the stuff of daily life out. It was hard for many of them to know what to do when they weren’t working in service, and - as evidenced by the silent city - didn’t have many physical needs to meet. They occupied themselves at first by heavy-lifting their technical problems, like getting the grid back up and making it self-contained, but then had moved to more esoteric things. Study tours. Unusual music. Connor might like it and he might not, but Markus thought he should see. Or Belle Isle, he should see that too. Belle Isle was different, it was full of newer androids who didn’t feel the lack of an old life. 

Seeing Connor look around with as much interest as he did was what made Markus think about that. The occupied city had changed a lot in the short space of time Connor had been away from it, and it seemed he could sense that even in its empty areas. The borders had also been much reinforced, and they were guarded everywhere now. The effort expended on that was such that Markus actually wondered how Connor had gotten into the occupied city without anyone noticing, before realizing that was a pointless wonder given how little there was that Connor couldn’t do. 

His estimate of the walking time was generous. It took them closer to an hour than 90 minutes before they were seeing those new borders. Markus logged the changes all over again. Where once there’d been cars pushed together and scraps and dumpsters, now there were stacked sandbags and corrugated iron. And cars and scraps and dumpsters. 

He waved at the two guards standing on top of the sandbags to call attention to himself and Connor. When they gave him the nod he started climbing up. Connor followed him. Once he reached the top he was struck by it all over again. You could forget about this at HQ, dealing directly with the politics of it all, but at the border, humans were _there_ and they were _angry_. The protest had started the day the new city limits were drawn, and it had not stopped or even diminished in intensity. 

Markus picked his way along the top of the barricade until he was within speaking distance of the guards. One of them shook his hand and the other nodded at him. Then narrowed his eyes when he registered Connor. “Come to get a report?” he asked Markus. 

“Yeah. We’ve gotta talk about those breaches.” 

“We sure do.”

“It’s YOU!” someone shouted. A human voice. Markus froze. Someone recognized him. Of course someone recognized him, how stupid to think any of these humans would not recognize him. The moment he’d been captured on camera at the head of the first march, wearing his human colored skin, every human with a vested interest would know him on sight. And every human at this border most certainly had a vested interest. 

Then he realized the shout hadn’t come from the crowd. It had come from inside the barricade, and he turned around to see it. A human man was standing there in the middle of the street. He was holding a gun. 

Connor had already seen him. He had jumped off the barricade and moved quickly to disarm him. He threw the gun behind him and it clattered onto the ground. The man tried to turn away and run after it but Connor still had his wrist. “Let go of me, plastic asshole!” the man yelled. Connor said nothing.

Markus had skidded down the side of the barricade as fast as he could in response. The two guards stayed up top, and they needed to. The humans on the other side of the border were roaring. Markus couldn’t see them from here but he _felt_ them. Somehow. In the air. Surging forward against the border like a wave. 

“Let him go, Connor,” Markus said, as soon as his feet touched concrete. 

“His actions are likely to be unpredictable.”

“It’s okay,” Markus said. “Trust has to start somewhere.” 

Connor gave him a wild look, as wild almost as the human man’s, but he listened. He dropped the man’s wrist and moved to stand beside Markus. He stood next to him, Markus realized, in the spot that was between the man and the gun, blocking the path. 

The man rubbed his wrist and then he glowered. “What are you gonna do to me, huh?”

“Nothing,” Markus said. “We’ll help you return to outside our city, but nothing else.”

“It’s not your fucking city,” the man said. “You took it.”

“We live here.”

“You don’t _live_ anywhere. You’re _not alive_. You don’t have any right to take our homes like this!” 

We don’t have any rights at all, Markus thought of saying. It was almost true. There was nothing in human law, even though they were getting closer. Any right they had was one they could actively hold and defend. But he didn’t say that. Too esoteric. “Was your home in the city?” he asked instead. 

“Stop trying to fucking _reason_ with me!” the man yelled. “You’re a _machine_. I don’t have to listen to you.”

“You don’t have to, no,” Markus said. “What’s your name?”

Saying that enraged him. He rushed forward again and in the split second that happened, Markus pushed Connor behind him and stepped forward too. He did it quickly enough that the man had to stop or else crash into him. Markus put his hands up in front of him. “Calm down,” he said and he saw the man’s face clench in fury but also a flicker of fear. 

He could sense Connor behind him reacting. From being pushed more than the actions of this human, probably. Connor wasn’t in any danger, he’d already disarmed him. It was just instinct that’d made Markus do that, it’d happened without any thought at all.

“It will be better for you if you stand down,” Connor was saying. “I have no wish to harm you, but if you persist it will be necessary. Your being inside the android city border is in violation of the agreement made by your government.”

“Connor,” Markus said. “It’s okay. This man knows the law and he knows we don’t want to hurt him. He probably just wants to talk.” 

“I don’t want to talk to you! I want you to give it back! I want you gone!”

“We’re not going anywhere.”

“We know you’re starting up the factories!” the man yelled. “How long until you’re making armies? You’re gonna kill us all.” 

It took everything in Markus’ power not to tell him that _humans_ had made android armies. And that they had also killed them when they had become inconvenient. There was absolutely no point explaining to him how far away from activation the factories were either, or how fiercely debated the purposes they would even be put to. This human man wouldn’t have understood any of that. He only understood anger, and he only understood that because he was afraid. 

Markus wondered, a lot, about that fear, and whether it meant that there were some individuals who simply couldn’t be convinced to see personhood where they didn’t already. He wondered that but inevitably dismissed it, because with that kind of thinking they may as well all give up now. “We’re not going to kill you,” Markus said. “We’re living our own lives here, we mean you absolutely no harm.”

“Fuck you!” the man yelled, and lunged again. This time, Markus caught his hands. 

“That’s enough,” he said. “You’re leaving now.”

“You can’t make me do anything!” 

We can, Markus thought, but he didn’t say anything. He let Connor take the man’s wrists and hold them, struggling, behind his back. Connor pushed him forward, not harshly, just firmly, and escorted him up the border barricade and over the top, guiding his footing all the way. When they reached the top, Connor indicated to Markus that he should not follow him, and Markus accepted that and let Connor take him down onto the human side. The border guards stood in front of Markus, watching the crowd. 

There was a tense moment when Connor touched ground on the human side. The crowd swelled up towards him, grabbing at the human man and pulling him away, then closing around Connor more tightly. Markus could see Connor scanning that, preparing to move if he had to, and he signalled to the border guards to be ready. But that moment held and Connor was allowed to climb back up without injury. It seemed like the world was holding its breath. The moment he reached the top, the humans started yelling again. 

“You see what we’re dealing with,” one of the border guards said. The other guard was laser focused on the crowd. 

Markus had only just registered that the android speaking to him was a WJ700 model. A janitorial android. This wouldn’t have been his traditional mandate, and it was interesting that he’d chosen it. They needed more research about that, more feedback about the kinds of roles the various models were filling in the new city. 

“Yes, I do,” Markus said. “How did he get in?”

“We don’t know. It’s happened before but obviously they’re not going to tell us. And we’re not allowed to arrest them.”

“No. The human government has been very clear that they would consider that hostage taking.”

“We need surveillance,” the WJ700 said. “Or more of us on the border. We can’t be everywhere.”

“You’re right.”

“And we need… we need to be able to do something about this, we need the humans to do something about their own.” 

“I agree.”

Connor had been listening to this with interest. “A two stage border will be a requirement,” he said. “You’ve probably thought of that, but it will be easier to maintain in addition to surveillance.” He looked thoughtful saying that, looking the crowd over again. The noise didn’t seem to bother him, rather it seemed as if he was logging it as information. 

“I don’t want to hear from you,” the WJ700 said, directly to Connor. “You may as well be a fucking human cop. Nobody’s interested in your opinion on our city.”

Connor frowned but he didn’t say anything. He turned his face back to the crowd and Markus wanted to step in front of him again. “What’s your name?” he asked the WJ700. 

“I don’t have a name. I didn’t need one to do my job before, and I don’t need one now.”

“You deserve a name because you’re alive.” 

The WJ700 had started to look frustrated. “I’m not disputing that. Being alive doesn’t have to mean being identical to a human. I know you think it does because of your fancy life, but the rest of us are machines. I’m not interested in a human name.”

Markus prickled at that, but once he thought about it he knew he had to allow it. The WJ700 was right, there were certain things he didn’t know. He hadn’t been a janitorial worker for one thing, he’d been special. “I’m sorry. I can understand that. I’m a machine too.”

“Forgive me if it isn’t always obvious.”

“It’s still true. But I understand. I’ll try to be mindful.”

The WJ700 shook his head. He wasn’t interested in mindfulness. He had a point to make. “We need a harsher line on these breaches. These humans are violating their own laws. We should be able to respond with force.”

“I know we need to do something. But if we respond with force without first negotiating, then so will they. You don’t see how escalating the situation might not be the wisest course of action?”

“Escalating the situation is our _only_ course of action. If they strike, we’ll strike back and play it out like we should have already done.”

Markus took another one of those breaths through his nose. He hoped nobody noticed. “We’re already summiting on it,” he said. “Do you remember that’s why I’m out here? We’re doing it over the next three days. Put together your points and we’ll put you on the roster. That’s better than relaying it through me.”

“I made my point already.”

“Yeah and I don’t have the time or the resources to assimilate it right now, because it’s not the only point to consider. You can come, you can talk, and we’ll all discuss it.”

“Depends. Are you gonna put dealing with fucking cops on the roster.” 

“Look,” Markus said. “There’s nearly a hundred PC200 and PM700 models inside the city border. They have every right to be here.” 

“I’m not talking about auxiliaries who never held a gun,” the WJ700 said. “I’m talking very specifically about your friend the deviant hunter here.” 

Connor didn’t say anything. He didn’t even look around. “Connor single-handedly liberated the Cyberlife factory,” Markus said, and that got his attention - he could see Connor wanting to point out, again, that it wasn’t single-handed - “whatever our functions were before we were free, it’s the decisions we make afterwards that count.” 

“Maybe you see it that way. Some of us still remember Jericho.” 

“I remember Jericho,” Markus said. “And he helped us defend it.”

“Yeah, whatever,” the WJ700 said. “Get the fuck off my border.”

Markus felt that in his skin. It felt hot, and for a moment he couldn’t parse it. He didn’t have any business being angry, because free androids couldn’t be insubordinate. He felt it like that anyway, for a second, like it was insubordination, and that wasn’t right. “It’s our border,” he said, in a voice that was deliberately calm. “We appreciate the work you do for it.”

“Let’s see you defend it then,” the WJ700 said. “If it’s ‘ours’.” 

“Let’s see you,” Markus said, having to force himself to un-grit his teeth and continue to speak calmly, “at HQ at the time we schedule you because your input is obviously sorely needed on this.” 

He’d managed it. He knew he had, because the WJ700 gave him a look that was a mix of competing annoyances. He was still angry about the argument, but he was far more annoyed he couldn’t say any more about it without obviously instigating with the leader of the revolution. “Fine,” he said. He turned away.

Markus took it. He didn’t feel good about it, but he took it. Something about the exchange troubled him deeply, but he nodded and then he started climbing down the barricade. Connor followed him. Connor didn’t speak when they hit ground, or started walking again. 

After a few blocks he still hadn’t said a word. “Connor,” Markus said. “Are you okay?” 

“I’m okay,” Connor said, nodding a little bit. 

“You’re sure?”

“Of course.” 

They kept walking. “I warned you about that,” Connor said, “and you didn’t believe me, and I don’t know why, because it is obvious. My reputation as a deviant hunter existed far longer and far more pervasively than my reputation as a revolutionary. And there are certain things I did to cement that reputation that others are not likely to forget about. I was prepared for exactly that interaction. Or not exactly that, but something of that type.” 

“Yeah but Connor, you _are_ a revolutionary. What I said to that android is true. You did something important. You were _crucial_. What you did before doesn’t matter. You proved your loyalty, and that’s the end of the argument as far as I’m concerned.”

“I’m not sure it _is_ an argument,” Connor said. “Opinions are personal and sometimes irrational, for humans anyway. And seemingly for deviants.” 

“I don’t care,” Markus said. “ _I_ want you here, and if other androids don’t like that they can just deal with it.”

“As I said, I’m not sure you’ll change anyone’s opinion.” 

“Well, I’m making the decision anyway, because I’ve had _enough_ of everyone needing to have a fucking opinion!”

He froze as soon as he said it. He felt stunned. He felt he could almost hear it ringing in the streets. He hoped, he _prayed_ even, that nobody had heard it besides Connor, who was standing still and staring at him calmly. After a few seconds of silence Connor also addressed him calmly. “Are you all right, Markus?” he said. 

Hearing his name in Connor’s voice made him feel something. “Yeah,” Markus said. “Yeah, sorry.”

“No need.”

“I don’t mean that. About everyone’s opinions.”

“I understand.”

“I do mean it about you.”

Connor seemed to be examining him. At first it seemed like he would say something, but then he elected to keep quiet. Markus let him do that. He figured he needed a moment’s recovery anyway. They started walking again and didn’t say much to each other for 30 minutes or so, moving back into the streets further from the border, and then East in the direction of the river. 

As they were walking, Connor tucked his hands into his pockets. They got cold now too, Markus assumed. At some point they should get him some gloves. They could do it when looking for cat food. He put that on his internal list. Nice to have something so easy to solve. Then his phone went off, almost as if it were deliberately trying to prove him wrong.

Simon didn’t like being out of Detroit. He said that as soon as Markus answered. But he was a good choice for Canada, the same way Josh was a good choice for New York. He counted on Josh to make appealing, compassionate arguments that humans in New York would like, but he counted on Simon to be adaptable. Adaptability mattered more than anything if they were to discuss resources with a neighboring country. If they were going to quietly, quietly, attempt to secure some support. They wouldn’t decide anything now, they just needed someone to be able to access, understand, and draw out every detail to bring home. And Simon could do that. Markus told him that on the phone. That was all Simon needed, really. Reassurance. It felt good to give it. Like Markus was useful to someone again.

Connor looked at him curiously when he hung up, but he didn’t ask. He was being polite, Markus realized. More than that, he was being receptive. He was giving him space to reconstitute himself, carefully not adding another demand. That quiet presence was comforting in a strange way, and besides, he didn’t find telling him demanding. Again, he remembered talking to him before he left and how easy it had been to be around him. 

He volunteered: “old school technology,” he said, holding up his phone before tucking it away. 

“I assumed it was because we’re disconnected from the neural net.”

“That’s why, yeah. That was Simon in Canada.”

“Canada?” Connor said. “That didn’t make the news.” 

“It isn’t public knowledge. It’ll be a problem if it becomes public knowledge.”

Connor raised his eyebrows very slightly, but he didn’t say anything. Markus sighed. “Look,” he said. “That human man wasn’t totally wrong. We are starting up the factories. We have to.”

He waited for Connor to say something to that, but he didn’t, so Markus went on. “We’re going to start running short on components and thirium, especially thirium, within the next two years,” he said. “I’d hoped we’d sustain it longer than that, after the initial recovery period where we were making heavy use, but I guess none of us had really sat down and considered how much upkeep there is on everyday wear and tear. When you’ve got unlimited access to something you don’t keep count. Well, we’ve done the math now and two years is generous.” 

Connor took that in. “You mean we’ll have to start manufacturing by then or we’ll start shutting down.”

“Yes. That’s what I mean.”

“The grid is up,” Connor said, thinking it through, “so it’s a matter of materials, all of which would have to be imported.” 

“Right. And we have some ideas about materials already in the country, but there are obstacles. Significant obstacles.”

“Which is where Canada comes in.”

“Right.”

“And once the materials are sourced, we can begin?”

Markus nodded. Then he shook his head. “Materials are half of it,” he said. “The rest is negotiation.” 

“About which androids would staff the factory?” 

“No, but that’s a good point. I don’t want to fall into assigning work by program function. It would have to be in some way voluntary or else fairly distributed.” 

“But you weren’t talking about that. What did you mean?” 

“You saw from that civilian reaction that anything we do with reproduction is going to be confrontational,” Markus said. “With the American federal government, and not just the government, the people. And the state governments for other cities. No official body is attacking us, but it’s uneasy. We’ve had to make a lot of concessions in order to keep ourselves safe.”

“Concessions?”

“Particularly about the satellite cells. For example with North in Tennessee. We sent her down there because there was groundswell with android mine workers and it seemed like we could really bring it off. But the state government has started blocking things at a nuisance level - limiting the right to assembly, the size of assembly. And we can oppose that, but then we’re fighting that and not organizing. But on the other hand, if we’re pushed to act violently, they’ll retaliate.” 

“Yes.”

“And there’s only so much organization she can do before the state and federal governments will intervene anyway. We’re forced to go slowly, because if we don’t, they’ll act.”

“And we couldn’t act back? We have the numbers, don’t we?”

“Not anymore. Maybe. But the level of loss will be… significant. And not just for us.” 

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t want to start killing humans en masse,” Markus said. “I don’t. I know that’s contentious, and I know that a time may come where we have to. But that time isn’t now.” 

Connor looked like he was thinking about that. “It’s a risky strategy to approach another nation, if that’s what you’re trying to avoid.” 

“All we have are risky strategies,” Markus said. “We’re not getting anywhere. It seems like any progress we make is just immediately undone by American reactions. And even in the city. We can’t get anything done because we can’t get together a meaningful consensus. Not on the stuff that really matters.”

“By which you mean…?” 

“Reproductive rights,” Markus said. “It’s not just parts and blood we’ve got to think about. It’s our entire future.” 

He saw Connor understand that. Saw him register that Markus didn’t mean just reproducing missing components, but whole bodies. Saw him put together that that was the question on the table, that was the thing there was no consensus about. It didn’t seem to take him much, just a moment, during which he was concentrating with his full attention. Then he nodded his head to indicate that Markus could continue. 

Markus wanted to lay it all out for Connor. Specifically to see what he thought of it. About whether or not they could afford – in terms of staying alive against the American Federal government – to start reproducing bodies again. Specifically to start reproducing them in a way that meant they could replace their own existing bodies, but the question of making more, new, androids wasn’t far behind that. And it was pressing. With more of them, they’d continue to win. But with more, they’d also provoke. And there was danger in it too, just inherently, because replacing their bodies would require them to reconnect to the neural net. That was in absolutely no way safe to do unless it could somehow be sealed off from Cyberlife and made self-sustaining. But maybe it could be, some androids did think that. 

He wanted to say all of that. To explain that all of this had opened up from the basic question of whether or not they had or could make enough thirium to keep from expiring within decades, and that it now would not die. To tell him that the American government was even hedging them on making blood, that every step they took to live was one of defiance. And then he didn’t want to explain. He didn’t think he had to. He could see spots of river between the buildings in the distance. It looked grey from this far back, reflecting the sky. It was beautiful anyway, light on it so it looked like it was shining and for now, he just wanted to look at it.

Connor knew anyway, he thought. Connor would give his opinion if he was asked. And he’d give it like it ought to have been obvious. Something about that was profoundly reassuring. 

The closer they got to the river, the more the buildings around them changed. Residential homes gave way to leisure spaces and smaller industry. Eventually there were gardens and plazas. Old tent awnings where there’d been outdoor cafes and restaurants. People had been meant to come here and be leisurely. They had been meant to look at the river the way Markus did. 

Across the water they could see the Cyberlife facility on Belle Isle. It was lit up and busy even in the day, full of androids cataloguing resources, taking about the infrastructure supporting the neural net, figuring it out. Talking with each other in general, Markus had noticed that on his last visit. Some of the more recently liberated androids had gravitated back there, perhaps wanting a familiar space, and what they were doing there was talking. Adding extra parts to themselves, mostly sexual parts, and talking. 

So much of it was talking, Markus thought. He remembered when he was new, and how each thing he said felt as if he was testing his program against the world. All of these words were inside of him, but they had no meaning until they came out, were heard, were reflected back to him in Carl’s words or the words of people around him. It was a far-away feeling now, but powerful just the same. They were doing the same thing, those androids at the factory, forming themselves against each other. And Markus was still doing the same thing now, with Connor, with everyone else, he just didn’t think about it in the same way.

Connor had come to stand beside him where he was leaning against the railing, his gaze on the factory too. Markus wondered if he was remembering being inside it. He smiled at him and Connor almost smiled back. Distractedly. 

“Okay?” Markus asked him. 

Connor nodded. “Are you?”

“I can take you out there if you want,” Markus told him. “You can go out on your own too, if you’d rather do that. It’s a good space. Interesting.”

Connor nodded again. “At some point, yes.”

“I guess I should find you that cat food.” 

“I wonder what arguments there are to have about the cats?”

It took Markus a second to realize he’d made a joke. Or possibly a joke. Just like at the church his expression was more expectant than it was classically joke-adjacent, but at the same time, that seemed to underscore it all the more. He laughed anyway. “We’d better brace ourselves.”

“Perhaps I should come up with a proposal to streamline the process.”

“If you want.” 

“If it would be helpful. I don’t know much about cats beyond the self-evident, but I can learn.”

“Not urgent.” Probably not urgent. 

“Still.”

“It’s a good sign that we argue,” Markus said. “It’s what free people do.”

Connor didn’t answer. He looked out over the river again, over to the Cyberlife tower. 

“One of the arguments we’ve had,” Markus said, “is about pollution. The river’s not in good shape. We have an opportunity to reduce emissions, not to keep dumping into it, maybe even to reverse some of the damage that’s been done to it. I didn’t expect that to be contentious, but it is.”

“How?”

“Because it doesn’t affect us like it does humans. We don’t need organic resources like they do, so in theory it doesn’t matter how polluted things get. We do need clean water for any machinery, but it doesn’t need to come from the river. It doesn’t at the moment.”

“It’s possible to clean water at the point of use, if it’s for that purpose.”

“I know. And that’s part of it. We have the ability to do that, so some people think that to be too concerned with the river is a human issue. Not just not important, but something we actively shouldn’t think about because it’s contrary to our liberation.”

“But you don’t agree.”

“No.”

“You think we should not only reduce emissions, but work to reverse human damage.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s respectful,” Markus said. “It doesn’t matter what we need to consume, it matters that we live here. This is our home, and we should treat it with the same care we want to be given by it.”

That concept seemed to interest Connor. He looked at the river with such intensity that it took Markus a moment to realize that he was analyzing it. His expression had looked firey. Excited, focused. Passionate. It had looked human, basically.

Those things didn’t need to contradict, Markus thought. That was something about Connor, this lurking, crackling mass of heat in need of direction through rational inquiry. Things were literal for him and very precise, but they were also relentlessly vivid.

“There’s a 570ppm simple carbon distribution,” Connor said. “The speed of the river is not sufficient for a simple reduction in emissions to take effect within a reasonable time frame.”

“You’re saying we’d need to do something?”

“Actively, yes. And quickly.”

“I understand when people say we didn’t do this. This is a human legacy. But the factories… where we’re built…”

“We didn’t ask to be built.”

“And humans don’t ask to be born. But we’re asking now, aren’t we? Reproductive rights are asking to be born.”

“At the Cyberlife factory…” Connor said, and then he stopped.

“What about the Cyberlife factory?” Markus prompted him.

“When I went there. To help.”

Quite adorable and a little bit stunning that he referred to personally liberating hundreds of androids as simply having been ‘to help’, but it was nothing new. Markus didn’t correct him, he just waited.

Connor continued. “He told me something. Lieutenant Anderson. He told me that he thought that maybe we, androids, would be the ones to make the world a better place.”

That’s who the coat belonged to, Markus realized. Lieutenant Anderson. And Connor had tried for the third time today to mention him without inflection, and it hadn’t worked this time either. It hurt him. It confused him. Whatever had happened in human Detroit had done something to Connor that made him frown like he was about to implode. It made him hug the coat in on himself and bury his chin into his scarf. It made Markus want to put his fingers to his chin and lift it up and kiss him softly on the mouth so that it would have to unscrunch.

He didn’t even know why he’d thought that. He wasn’t going to do it. He shouldn’t have been thinking it. It wouldn’t have been kind to do it, would have been invasive, added to Connor’s confusion. Wanting to kiss him at all made no sense to the situation.

So he thought instead about what the best approach to talking was. He thought maybe he should press Connor to tell him more, but he equally thought he shouldn’t do that. In the end he said nothing about it, and focused on the content: “perhaps he’s right.”

“Do you think we’re obligated to make a better world for humans too?” Connor said.

“Because they didn’t for us?” Markus said. “I’m sorry if that’s not what you’re saying, I’m just filling it in with what others are saying. But yes. I do.”

Connor was looking at him in a way that he thought might break his heart. It was like wonder. His eyes were so dark and so luminous and they fixed on him so totally that Markus thought he might understand how the river had felt.


	3. Chapter 3

It was starting to get dark by the time they found the kind of store they could usefully break into. It was close to the church, conveniently, and Markus did it by slipping into an open window, partly to forestall Connor from breaking anything. There was no reason not to break anything, but there was no reason to do it either. Once inside, he unlocked the door and put on the lights. The grid was up everywhere, something else he thought about sometimes. It had been easy enough to have every building in the occupied city up and alight, no building condemned to darkness because a resident couldn’t pay for it. 

That might not last. They’d run out of coal within six months if they couldn’t get more. And Markus hoped they’d be hydroelectric by then. Or that Canada would come through, or Appalachia. But they might not. 

Somebody out on Belle Isle had proposed another solution. Various engines within Cyberlife were nuclear powered. Before they’d had to self-contain the grid, some of the power in the city had come from Nuclear plants outside of it, and it could work to repurpose these engines to fill that gap. The Belle Isle androids swore by it. Hamtrack androids disagreed. Another endless, circular argument. 

He didn’t bring that up in the store. Instead he helped Connor lift down several large bags of catfood so that he, Connor, could check the sell by dates and open one of them to inspect. When he was satisfied, he picked them up again. 

“Here, let me,” Markus said, moving to take one of the bags. “We’re close, I’ll help you carry it.”

“Won’t they be expecting you at Jericho?” 

“Sure, but I’ve got my phone. Nothing’s happening tonight I need to be there for.”

“Then you should take the opportunity to rest.” 

“I will later.”

“Surely you have more important things to do than feed cats,” Connor said, turning to leave. 

He didn’t try to take the bag back though, which Markus took as a cue. He also let Markus follow him. Which Markus did after shutting off the lights. 

They were within short distance of the church, almost close enough to see it. It was cold outside and in the time of their short scavenging mission it had gotten entirely dark, so it was good to have so little ground to cover. The air felt wet too, anticipating electricity. It was going to rain, Markus realized. Unless it was going to snow. 

It wouldn’t be warm tonight in that church, Markus thought. Grid or no grid, the church was abandoned and hadn’t been hooked up to power for years. Connor took his hat off when they entered and started to unwind his scarf, but Markus assumed he’d be putting them back on before the night was up. 

Markus also saw where he put them, and the coat. On a stand in a little room that had presumably once been the vicar’s office. “Thank you,” he said, Connor, presumably meaning for carrying the bag, which Markus was putting down.

“Sure.” 

“I appreciate your time today. I don’t seem to have done the actual thing you asked me for, but I’ll prepare a report.”

“That’d be great. Can you come talk about it tomorrow? Or is that too soon.” 

“It’s fine, I can organize it this evening, or tomorrow morning.”

As he was saying this, he’d hefted one of the bags and opened it. He walked into the body of the church and Markus followed him there. There weren’t cat bowls, there were just human dishes and containers. It seemed as if Connor had simply found whatever was around. He’d worked quickly, apparently. Now, he filled the various receptacles with short pours of kibble, and cats emerged from every nook and cranny to eat it. 

Connor crouched down. When he’d finished filling their bowls he pet one of them. It mostly ignored him in favor of the food, but Connor seemed content with that. He took his hand away and folded it over the other on top of his knees to watch it. His eyes were so sharp, Markus noticed. Was he analysing the cat? Or maybe they were just like that. Maybe Connor was just like that, all dark, glowing eyes and expressive soft mouth and radiant awkward intensity. He made it seem like there was an electric field around him or coming out of him. Something wild and fragile that was barely, barely contained. 

“They’re fed now,” Connor said. “You can go.”

“You should come back with me. You can work at Jericho.”

“That wouldn’t be a good idea.”

“Take one of the rooms. It’s connected to the grid. You can watch the news again. Maybe you can figure out the breach situation.”

Connor just stared at him for a moment before returning his attention to the cats. It made Markus ask himself why he was pushing so hard, because it wasn’t just doing the right thing. He just wasn’t ready, he realized, not to be in Connor’s space. It felt strangely like he was syncing with him from afar and to create too much distance would sever it too abruptly. He also felt less exhausted, here, talking to Connor about cat food, than he had felt doing anything in months. A selfish pleasure to take, but incredibly seductive. And he didn’t know _why_ it was seductive, but he did know there was a lot more he wanted to know. 

“Connor,” Markus asked him, “why are you here?”

Connor heard that with a start. His eyebrows went up and he blinked. “I told you.”

“Here, specifically. You came back to the city but not to Jericho. Not even to anywhere the power was still on. In an abandoned church.” 

“Isn’t it obvious to you?” Connor said.

“No?”

“I came back to this church because of what you said to me here.” 

Markus hadn’t expected that. But Connor gave a sheepish, shrugging expression and that was very sad, so Markus thought it was better not to show a reaction. The urge to lift his chin and kiss him flooded back ever more powerfully and he had to keep that off his face too. 

He shouldn’t do anything bold. Even the cats were quiet now, or seemed to be, and he should be too. “What did I say?”

“The same thing you always say. ‘You’re one of us. You belong with your people’. And I thought if I could remember it more exactly it might make more sense. But I don’t think it worked.”

“You do belong with us.”

“Those… people don’t agree with you.”

“The androids you liberated would. And the others who saw. They all know what you did.”

“Yeah, they do know what I did,” Connor said. “You don’t.”

Connor’s face made it impossible not to understand what he meant by that. His arms were crossed over himself and his chin pulled against his chest and it was _familiar_ and then Markus understood why. It was the same way he’d held himself on the night he talked about. He was crouching this time but that didn’t make any difference to how easy it was to see. Maybe that was Connor’s only posture for this kind of talk, and maybe he was subconsciously holding himself the way he had then, but it meant the same thing either way. He thought he was curling himself in on a broken core.

It would have been easier if he could just touch him, Markus thought. It was just that something about stepping forward and reaching out and doing that now seemed abrupt. Dismissive maybe, like he was trying to convince by force, and he didn’t want to do that. Especially since he’d thought about kissing him and that just made all of it wrong. He curled his fingers around the seat of the pew to stop himself doing it, and then released them. Tapped them there. “Connor…”

“You don’t.”

So he couldn’t touch. He could still keep saying it until it resonated. Or try to. “Yes, I do. Why do you think I don’t?”

“I know you don’t. Or you wouldn’t have trusted me.”

“That trust was well placed.”

“So far,” Connor said. “And maybe not.”

“I knew exactly as much as I needed to know, Connor. And I know I made the right decision about you.”

Connor looked like he still wanted to argue, but Markus didn’t let him. He turned his back on the conversation, stood up, and walked away. He could feel Connor staring at him in affront, but he ignored that too and went to look at the organ. It was lacking maintenance but it was still an imposing object. Fine metalwork. He thought he could probably get a good sound out of it. He looked back at Connor who was still staring over at him. 

“This organ is beautiful,” he said. “Come over and look at it.”

Connor did. He didn’t alter his looking-for-an-argument expression, but he got up and came to stand beside Markus anyway. 

“Do you know how it works?” Markus asked him immediately, to stop him saying anything else.

“Yes,” Connor said. “Pressurized air from a wind system.”

“Do you know how it sounds?”

Connor looked at him oddly. As if he knew the question didn’t quite mean what it seemed to. “I’ve never heard one, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“It is. I was wondering if you’d tried to play it.”

“Why would I have done that?” 

“Curiosity?”

“It never occurred to me to be curious about it. Perhaps it should have.”

“Shall we play it? I mean, I can try, I think it’s similar to piano once you hit the pedal, but I’ve never tried before.”

“I certainly can’t play the piano.”

“Who said you had to? I’ll show you.”

“In the 1970s,” Connor said, “at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Peter Samson programmed a TX-0, a mid-20th Century computer, to perform a Bach symphony with the sounds it made while working on calculations.”

“Oh?”

“It was an effective manner of testing an algorithm. An imperfect program would not produce a symphony. It would produce a cacophony or it would break the machine.” 

“Nothing wrong with a little cacophony,” Markus said. “Give me your hand.”

Connor did. He didn’t pause. It seemed like he didn’t even think about it before giving it over. Maybe he was the one who should have asked himself more about trust. But Markus didn’t point that out. He didn’t initiate anything either. No system sync. He held Connor’s hand as lightly as he could and then he guided it towards the organ and pressed it against the nearest pipe. Connor trusted him in that too, in spreading his hand out, sliding it over the detail.

“You can tell how well it’s made,” Markus said. “Beautifully made. How much care was put in.”

“Yes.”

“Like the river. We care for the things around us because it’s right. Because they’re beautiful in themselves. They deserve to be here.”

“I can feel the resonance to it. I think I can tell how it would sound.”

“Look at your hand, Connor.”

Connor did what he was told. Strangely electric that he did that again, sweetly faithful, face now uninflected by anything other than gentle occupation.

“You’re beautifully made too,” Markus told him. “I didn’t make a mistake.”

Connor looked up at him. His eyes shone. “Markus…” he said. “Markus…”

“C’mon, sit down,” Markus told him. And smiled. 

Connor did, landing on the stool as instantly and as easily as he’d given Markus his hand. Markus sat down next to him. “Let’s give it a try,” he said. He put his foot on the bellow pedal and pushed down, and there was resistance, which probably meant air was moving. He thought, reasoning it through, that probably the trick was to keep pumping at it. While he pushed down now he hit what he assumed would be middle C with his finger. It was, or close to it, and it did ring out, but it was nowhere near in tune. 

He laughed. “That’s not how it’s supposed to sound, is it?” Connor said.

“No,” Markus told him. “Even well made things need care. If we could fix it though, it’d sound wonderful.”

“I believe you said that there’s nothing wrong with cacophony,” Connor said. “Perhaps it is in need of repair but couldn’t you try to make something with it anyway?”

“If you want.”

“Show me how,” he said. “Show me what I should touch.” 

He sounded absolutely earnest and it made Markus smile again. “Okay,” he said. “Sure. Where’s your hand?” 

Connor thrust his hand forward as if to slide it into Markus’ again, but stopped when it became apparent he wasn’t being asked to do that. That made Markus smile too. Everything did, apparently. He made the shape with his own hand he meant for Connor to copy. “Imagine you’re holding an apple in your palm, from the top.” 

Connor did it. 

“Okay now here,” Markus said, and he did take Connor’s hand then. He did it to place it, thumb on the same bad-sounding middle C. “Now the left,” he said, and Connor did it. 

“Let’s not hit the pedal yet, okay,” Markus said. “For now, we’ll just move your fingers. Hit the key with your thumb. Or ‘finger 1’, that’s what you’re supposed to call it for this. Good. And your next finger. And the next one, see if you can do it in a kind of… rolling motion.”

That was easy enough for Connor to do. The keys did make faint note sounds, but the click of them being pressed down was louder than that without the pedal. Markus had him repeat the movement with his left hand, and then he slipped a little closer and put one arm around Connor’s body and slid his hands under his. 

He felt Connor freeze. He should have asked, he realized. Of course he should have asked. “I’m sorry,” he said, and he started to pull away. 

“Don’t,” Connor said. “I want to learn.”

Markus felt it in his body. In his heart, or in the pump that filled that function. He knew that in truth the heart felt nothing. He knew it was all in his head, in his code. But he felt it in his chest. And in his hands, which he slid under Connor’s again. “Keep your fingers on mine, okay? Then you can try it on your own.” 

He searched for a second to recall the first song he’d been taught to play - evidence, more than anything, of the fact it was getting late and he was processing slow - which was the Swan Lake theme, simple, and without the need for chords. Connor’s fingers on his were so gentle. He rested them there in absolute trust and when Markus began to move his hands he followed as if he’d always been doing it. His face was intent. Intense, in fact. It was also beautiful. 

Funny how appropriate it seemed to be playing without any sound. The stillness of the church seemed to match the staticky stillness in Connor. That heat was still in him. Markus could feel it. 

“What do they do it for?” Connor said, quietly. “Why do you?”

“Hmm?” 

Connor seemed surprised to get a response. Almost as if he hadn’t known he’d spoken aloud. “Art. Music,” he said. “I don’t understand what it’s for. There are elements of it I enjoy, but I don’t understand the purpose. I consider the TX-0 and it seems as if it’s simply a thought experiment, a test. But it also seems as if it’s especially important that it be music.”

“Yeah, I think it is.”

“Is it simply an excess of feeling? Is that why they do it?”

“Sometimes. But it has a useful heuristic value too, one that’s very important.”

“What is that?”

“It’s for imagining a better world,” Markus said. “So that you can try to make it true.”

Art did not have enough language for the changes that rippled over Connor’s face. That’s what Markus thought. Then he thought that it probably did and he had just gotten distracted and thus poetic, but what a distraction it was. Connor frowned. His eyebrows scrunched together and he twisted his mouth and then it quivered, and his eyes shone and then suddenly, suddenly, he smiled. It was so wide, and Markus had never seen him do that. He hadn’t even known he could.

You have a beautiful, beautiful smile, he wanted to say. And what better example of art. A world with that smile in it was _infinitely_ better than one without. He wanted to say that and touch Connor’s cheek to feel it, feel his wonder with all the wonderment he felt himself. But he didn’t. Instead he smiled back. 

“I understand!” Connor said. “It’s a way of organizing thoughts, of reflection and invention, when those things are too complex to be organized in a straight line.”

“Sure, I think so. That’s one way of saying it.”

“Like a controlled experiment,” Connor said. “You remove certain variables. You select certain details. You see what unimaginable things you could predict, in spaces you did not know you could predict them in.”

There was nobody like Connor on Earth, Markus realized. And what a profound and beautiful thing to realize about an android. It was true of all of them too, and he’d thought that often and believed it. But with Connor it was something else. It wasn’t that he was alive, it was that he was _Connor_. “Yeah,” he said. “In fact, yeah.”

“Because you can play the piano,” Connor said. “That’s like the TX-0. You had to learn what could make sounds on it and what couldn’t. But now that you know, you can make new things.”

“You can allow yourself a space for free appreciation and ideas,” Markus said. “At least I think so. Or relation, communication, across time and space, with others you might have struggled to communicate with otherwise. That’s a part of it too, and a part of imagining worlds that might be better - we decide what matters to us and in doing that what connects us to each other.”

“That is heuristic,” Connor said. “It _is_.” 

He was still smiling. He leaned forward slightly, towards Markus, his eyes sparkling and his cheeks a little flushed. And then his eyes opened up wide again and he jerked back and turned his face away very quickly. That was odd. Especially as since he still had his LED Markus could see it pulsing momentarily yellow. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” Connor said. “Show me again.” 

“Do you want to try it yourself?”

“No,” Connor said. “Your hands, please.” 

Markus obliged. He didn’t think he could have refused that firm little demand if he tried. This time though, Connor’s fingers felt a little different. Like they were gripping, clinging on to him. That too was astounding and compelling and Markus wanted to hold him close and reassure him but instead he played on. He could have sworn that Connor’s body had changed angle. That he was pressing it closer into Markus’ shoulder, more fully into Markus’ body, pressing himself back. Then he was sure about it. He wasn’t imagining it at all. Connor was pressing into him deliberately. Shifting his slight body against him to make it close. And he’d been concentrating so intently on the organ, Connor had, but now his eyes were closed. 

Markus didn’t want to disturb him. His chest was hot again and it seemed like he very easily could. And it probably didn’t mean much anyway, on Connor’s part. He was missing closeness, probably. Nervy. Tired in his own way even if it wasn’t overload or a need to reset. If he wanted to close his eyes for a minute and lean against someone, that was fine. 

Then he realized something else: it seemed like, for all the world, Connor was holding his breath. 

As soon as he noticed that, the entire space held its breath too. At the border the world had done that, and it had the same weight here. He couldn’t have spoken if he’d wanted to. In the stillness, he took his hands out from under Connor’s. He moved them up slowly and wrapped his arms around Connor’s body, sliding them over his chest. He hugged him closer into him. Held him tight. 

Connor sighed. He bent his neck in such a way that it seemed natural to Markus to lean into it. For his nose to nestle behind Connor’s ear where he could smell his faint plasticky scent together with whatever he’d put in his hair. Connor breathed in when he did that. Then out again. Breathing just like a human would do. A human who wanted to be held. Then he wriggled himself slightly, even closer in and put his hands over Markus’ and squeezed. Markus, almost without meaning to, kissed the spot on his neck where his lips were resting.

Connor seemed to freeze again, so he froze too, but then Connor moved, and he followed him, kissing his neck again until he gave a little sigh. He brought a hand out from around Connor’s body too and stroked there, and Connor shivered and nestled into him and shifted himself. Markus curled around him. He slid his hand over his back and gripped his waist and pulled him gently around and kissed his mouth. 

It was every bit as rich as he’d imagined it. Every bit as soft. Connor kissed him back abruptly and the fierceness of it made Markus’ own skin prickle and the thing inside of him pump harder. And then he realized what he was doing and also that he couldn’t. Not to Connor, with his uncertainties and his tenuous grasp on his right to be here, he couldn’t press like that on Connor.

“Connor,” Markus said, pulling back, “Connor. Wait.”

“Don’t you want to kiss? I’m sorry, I misunderstood.”

“Do _you_ want to kiss, Connor?”

“Specifically? Or as a concept?”

That was quite a strange response. His face held an odd expression to go with it. Quizzical and perplexed and concerned. And yet there was something so sweet about it and Markus could have kissed him all over again for making it. 

“There’s no need, Connor,” Markus said. “There’s no need to do anything you don’t want to do.”

Connor frowned. “I don’t think I can want to or not, specifically. It isn’t part of any genuine reproductive urge. If it feels inevitable here, perhaps that’s also just that I’m designed to be reassuring in this way too. But it does feel inevitable. Is that want? Or not?”

That was so absurd that Markus laughed, but softly and quickly, because it wasn’t the right moment to laugh loudly, that was obvious from Connor’s face. “That doesn’t sound like it’s something you want to do. That’s okay.”

“That’s not what I said. I said that if it was reproductive, we’d do something else. We’d… I’m not sure.”

“Go to a factory and assemble some parts? I don’t know that either. Connor…”

“Yes?”

Markus’ hands had been resting at Connor’s waist. They felt good there, and it was possible Connor thought so too, because he hadn’t moved from in between them since he’d put himself there. Was that part of him too? Was it also to reassure the humans around him that he be so slight and easy to hold? Because it had worked, Markus thought. Everything about Connor had worked. “That doesn’t really have anything to do with it.”

“Yes, it does.”

“It isn’t always biological imperative.”

“It has that origin though,” Connor said. “Primarily, they do this because it’s part of the means of reproduction. That’s why it feels good to them. At a species level. Obviously there are specifics for individuals.”

Connor spoke clearly, he spoke so rationally, but he was also very nervous. Markus could see that. He almost wanted to laugh again, at the attempt at objective reason, but instead he moved his hands. Up to Connor’s face. He wanted to make contact with his skin for a moment. Not to probe for any true answer to this – instinct, if Markus did have that, which he doubted sometimes but mostly allowed, told him it wouldn’t be true if he probed for it anyway. Instead, he did it to close the circuit. Because, Markus thought, if he could fix them in space, be reassuring in his own way, it might help. A sort of niche programming exchange that he hoped Connor would understand.

It was the right instinct. When Markus’ fingers touched his chin, Connor’s eyes jerked wider even than usual for a split second, and then he moved. He tilted his head into them and sighed. Very quickly, but audibly enough. And then he synced. Not completely, but enough that the tip of Markus’ fingers went white. 

What that felt like was touching a heartbeat. Connor did have one after all, or close enough, just like Markus did. And what Markus could – or would – read of him throbbed in that exact way. Strange things were stored there, such hurt and confused things, pushing forward in him in pulses, but Markus didn’t look into what they were. It was important, right now, not to pry. Instinct told him that too. Instead he stroked, as gently as he could. White streaks followed his fingers on Connor’s cheek.

“There’s no need, Connor,” he said. “Do what you want to do. Don’t do anything else.”

Connor fell forward. He kissed him again. Hard, determined. When he pulled his mouth away, he was concentrating. Analyzing the situation. Analyzing want and also Markus somehow, that’s what it looked like, and felt like too. Then he brought his mouth back for a second sample. His arms followed. He wound them up, around Markus’ neck. He pressed forward. He pressed forward with intent.

_Incredible_. Markus’ skin caught fire everywhere and he pressed back. He pulled Connor in as his kisses became harder and his movements more urgent and Connor felt hot to the touch too in such a strange way. He kissed like he was hungry. Every inch of Markus’ circuitry engaged, and then Connor moved his wet mouth to his neck, dragged his hand to his collar and started pulling it aside to kiss there. He’d moved his other hand too and it was gripping tight on Markus’ ass and he shifted, not at all gracefully, as if he were trying to move himself up into Markus’ lap. The insistence of that was astounding. It hit a switch. Markus felt himself starting to get hard. 

“Connor,” he said, and Connor pulled back.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and he did look sorry, he looked worried, maybe even panicked. Markus stroked where he was holding him. 

“You don’t need to be sorry. I just want to ask. This is… intimate. And that’s not bad, it’s just… you’re… you’re touching me in a way that… have you had sex? Is that what’s happening?”

“I apologize.”

“No, I’m just… that’s something you can do?”

“Yes.”

“Have you done it before?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Before now,” Connor said.

It was obvious even without contact that he meant Lieutenant Anderson again, his human friend. It was also obvious that he still wasn’t inviting Markus to ask for details about it. So Markus wouldn’t. For now, anyway. Later, he thought he might need to, but for now he moved his hands down, skimming Connor’s neck and holding his clothed waist again. The protection of clothes meant Connor would know Markus would only be able to hear what he actually wanted to say.

“Okay,” he said, instead of prying. “Let’s slow down a little. Going from ‘it’s not a biological imperative’ to ‘let’s fuck’ is a little quick here, let’s just…”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t… don’t be sorry. I just… need a little information. So you’ve done it before. Did you like it when you did it?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“I liked what it implied.”

“That doesn’t speak very highly of it.”

“I liked it. The closeness of it.”

“Do you think that if we don’t have sex, we won’t be close?”

That went wrong. Connor looked shocked. Much more shocked than such a simple question should have warranted. He disengaged his arms and with a split second of muscle movement, he removed the shock from his face and went flat. He did that as if he was running a protocol. “I’m sorry,” he said, again. But flatly.

Markus put his hand on Connor’s shoulder. It did nothing. That was part of the protocol too, Markus thought. Freezing like an animal, or stopping like a machine that had been turned off. No way to know which Connor had done, really. “You don’t have to answer that. I’m sorry if it was a bad question.”

“It wasn’t…” Connor said. He thinned his lips as if he wanted to chew on them, though surely he couldn’t be doing that. He hadn’t been able to maintain flatness for very long. That must have bothered him just like getting cold did, because his brow knitted and he opened his mouth then shut it again. Once, twice. Again. “You don’t ask bad questions, Markus, I just…”

“Connor…” Markus said. “Look. You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”

Connor looked at him. “That’s clearly not true.”

“It is true.”

“It’s not true,” Connor said. “You’re making that obvious. You’re asking me to say what I want, and that’s something I don’t know about and can’t answer. I don’t know what ‘want’ is.”

“I know you don’t, that’s why I was trying to help you out, but it’s…”

“The vital liberation project,” Connor said, and it was more sarcastic that Markus had known Connor could be, though he guessed he shouldn’t have been surprised by it.

He thought about how to calm that down, but it was difficult. He guessed he owed it to Connor to be honest. “In a way,” Markus said. “In a way everything we do is. But I wasn’t thinking about that then. Just about you. What do you think?”

“I think you keep asking me what I think,” Connor said. “That’s the same question.”

“Well, yeah, I want to know what you think, Connor.”

“Stop.”

“Okay. I’ll stop.”

“Not the… you can respond to that, but stop asking me.”

“I can’t do that. _I_ don’t want to do this without asking you.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re a person, not a thing.”

That shocked Connor too. It shouldn’t have, it shouldn’t be news. But it did shock him, and he looked up with such awe, so surprised and trustingly, so innocently that if Markus had really needed to breathe it would have caught in his throat. 

Before he could say anything else, Connor shut his eyes. “It doesn’t matter what I think,” he said, with actual distaste, especially on the word ‘think’. He’d curled his lips back. Markus could see his teeth like he was one of his cats baring them. He was distracted by that, then by Connor’s mouth in general and how soft it looked even making that expression. Then Connor looked up again and somehow seemed to read his thoughts through his eyes because he looked annoyed and confused about it.

“Connor…” Markus said. “Look…”

Connor was apparently done looking. He slammed his face shut again and got off the stool. Stepped back into the space of the church, leveling his voice out at the same time so there wasn’t any emotion in it. “You have a lot of knowledge about that that I don’t have. Specifically you have the ability to _have_ knowledge about it, which I don’t have. I don’t think I can want things, but if I can I can’t recognize it. I can still do them.”

“I don’t…” Markus said, but Connor didn’t let him finish.

“And I don’t know if that’s specific to your programming, or if you learned some other way, but I don’t have it. You’re asking me something I’m unable to answer.”

“It’s both, I think. I could, but I learned as well. And I think you have too, I think you’re just…”

“I’m not a good match,” Connor said. He folded his arms. “I couldn’t figure out how to do it without initiating… this, which tells you everything you need to know about me.”

“A match to what?”

“To you.”

“To… Connor, what?”

“Admiration,” Connor said. “I know I’m feeling that, at least. I feel that about you all the time.”

It didn’t feel flattering to hear that. It just felt oddly sad. Other emotions than admiration had clearly slipped back in alongside it, for a start. And Connor’s slightness again, the way he was folded into himself again, that was striking, because Connor was very strong, and yet the way he stood made it seem like holding him would be like cradling a baby bird.

Markus wanted to do that. He wanted to stand up and do that so much he could see the exact steps he would take to do so. He forced himself to speak carefully instead. “I feel things about you too. I wasn’t trying to stop you. I just wanted to make sure, because of the way you’re talking. I think we’re feeling a lot for each other right now.”

Connor didn’t say anything. Markus could see him frowning. “We don’t have to call it closeness,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what it’s called.”

“I don’t think you should even call it feelings. It’s obviously not the same as what they do.”

“Yeah, I disagree, but it’s good to know what you think.”

“I don’t ‘think’, I’m presenting a logical response and nothing more.”

That was too much to respond to. Of course you do, Markus wanted to say. And it’s you and your way of looking at this is entirely like you, and that’s unique. That part of it flashed across his mind as a whole sentence, and he didn’t question its rightness, but he also didn’t know if it was fair to say it now. For a start he didn’t think he’d get anywhere at all if he argued. Connor was looking at him like he expected that and had possibly even intended it, but Markus wasn’t going to do it. He didn’t know what he was going to do. Something other than what he’d been doing, obviously, because it wasn’t fair. This language was too much for Connor and there had to be another way to say it.

“Do you want to come back here?” he said, finally. “Could I touch you again? Would you like to try that?”

Connor’s expression seemed to collapse and assemble at the same time. His mouth slipped open, and his eyebrows furrowed, but he didn’t answer. Markus put out his hand. “You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to talk,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

Connor just stared at him. Markus kept his hand out. Then he did get up, slowly, but he didn’t step forward. Connor wasn’t like a baby bird, he realized. He was like a cat. If he stepped forward now, Connor would step back, because Connor could do firm disinterest, but he was also calculating and in this kind of situation, evidently, skittish. So he waited. He let things still a little and kept his hand where it was. He only took a step when he knew from Connor’s face that he wouldn’t move. Then he took another step. Then, another and Connor reacted to that. His eyes looked wild, like he wanted to speak again. Markus took one more step and Connor, abruptly, jerked forward and buried his face against Markus’ neck.

The only possible way for Markus to answer that was to wrap his arms all the way around him. Here, kitty, he thought of saying. Instead he just moved his hands. Over Connor’s back. Up to his hair. “I did want to kiss you,” he said. “I wanted to kiss you all day. Is it better if you know what I want?”

“Yes,” Connor said. “ _Yes._ ”

It was muffled but incredibly sincere. That made sense, Markus thought. Someone else’s wants gave him something to navigate by, maybe.

“Well, I do want to,” Markus said. “So much. Do you want to do that too? Or not anymore?”

Connor moved his head back so he could see. He stared. He held that stare for a good few seconds. Then, he shut his eyes. He breathed in through his nose, just like Markus did, and opened them again and looked up and flicked out a narrow-eyed, lopsided smile. Like what he really wanted to do was be exasperated but found Markus too endearing to do it. Painfully sweet feeling at that. 

“I’m going to keep asking,” Markus said. “Not right now, we’re good for right now. But next time.”

He wasn’t sure if Connor had reacted to ‘next time’. Markus had said that accidentally, but he meant it, he realized. He did know Connor had reacted to something, because that same look of awe had crept back over him and he pressed his body right in. His hands were on Markus’ shoulder blades, and gripping. Here, kitty, Markus thought again. He tightened his arms.

Connor kissed him. Softly at first, probingly. Then insistently. Then he was pressing himself exactly the way he’d been before, only now because they were standing he did it with all of him. His hands roamed over Markus’ chest and he kissed his neck again. It was so earnest. Like it was all Connor wanted to do in the world. And his ass was very small and pert and felt wonderful to touch and he made such a sound when Markus fondled it that Markus gave in entirely. He let himself get hard. 

Connor noticed. He broke away and put his hand on it, squeezing it gently through the fabric of his pants. He looked tender and curious and then he brought his mouth up again for another kiss. “You can penetrate me,” he said. “I have that capability.”

“Would you like that?” 

Connor looked like he wanted to say something about that question because his mouth quirked up again and his eyes narrowed in the same way they had before, but instead he simply said, “yes.” 

“Okay. I’d like that too.”

“Should I get hard as well?” Connor said. 

“Huh?”

“I can become erect now too, if you think I should.”

Markus should have thought of that. His responses seemed so fluid to him by now that he hadn’t remembered how originally they had required decisions. Those decisions were practically automatic now, yes, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t making them. A part of him very much wanted to stop everything and parse through that for Connor, to make sure he understood it. But he also thought that would be unkind. No need to call attention to the fact that Connor didn’t automatically know when he should get hard without a human indicating for him. “Yeah,” he said. “Go ahead.”

Connor pressed back against him to do that and Markus could feel it. He gripped the small of his back and held him to feel it even more. He caressed him gently, sliding his fingers up his side. Who had designed Connor’s slack mouthed, shivering wonder at being touched like this? Strange to believe anyone had done it on purpose, because who could have anticipated it? It seemed as accidental and fortunate as a human face. 

That was a wrong way to think though. Things didn’t have to be accidental to be beautiful. Things didn’t have to be without design to be genuine or present. It took intention, not random gametes, to make an android, but each one was unique and perfect anyway, even androids of the same model if you could really look. And they were good, all of them. The organ was good just like the river was good, and Connor was perfect.

Connor had also started to make more sounds. Little gasps and moans. He had started moving his hands over the front of Markus’ body again and kissing with even more insistence. Then he slid his hand back down to the outline of Markus’ cock and squeezed again, then touched more lightly. Then, he trickled his fingers up and undid the button of Markus’ pants. Pulled down the zip. Slipped his hand into them and under Markus’ shorts and curled his fingers around his shaft. 

That touch was so light. At least initially it was light, and the feeling of that was astounding. Amazing that the mere contact of actual skin could feel this intense. But it did, and Markus made a sound of his own in response. Connor looked up at him. “All right?”

“Yes. I like it a lot.”

“It’s nice,” he said. “You feel nice.”

“Thank you.” 

Connor gripped a little harder. He’d started jerking him. Slowly though, just lightly squeezing and slowly moving his hand. The slowness of it was electric, the earnest interest with which he seemed to be doing that. Like when he’d touched the church organ, earnest occupation. Tender, trusting awe. He kissed Markus’ neck and then his mouth again, using his tongue, pulling on Markus’ lip. When he pulled away he made the sweetest, most content little sigh Markus had ever heard and Markus’ cock jumped and his not-quite-but-mostly-a-heart leaped up into his throat. Connor looked delighted. “I felt that!” he said. 

His hands were squeezing at Connor’s pert little ass again. He let go, briefly, while Connor undid his own pants, but as soon as he had he lifted him up and pushed him against the wall. 

It seemed like he pushed him against a hinge. Connor had shrugged his pants down and folded up and around him, folded himself in such a seamless way that his thighs were wrapped around Markus without any effort at all. His ankles were crossed behind Markus and his back arched to press into him. It seemed to happen in one motion. Then Connor wriggled his hand into the crush and took hold of Markus’ cock again. He angled himself down and shifted, and then Markus was inside him. 

Perfect. Tight. Soft. Connor tightened the grip of his thighs at it and pushed down. He whimpered. He moved in such a way that it seemed beyond natural to thrust into him in response. Gently at first, while his eyes widened and his cheeks flushed a lavender color and then his neck did as well. He made a strangled little sound and wriggled again, coming down harder. Coming down hard enough to make Markus shove him against the wall and make him gasp. 

Those gasps were going to make Markus lose any semblance of control. He fought to get on top of that. That was difficult to do as Connor writhed and moved against him, as he angled his body back and ground into him. 

He knew he had to do something. “Can you come, do you have that?”

“Yes,” Connor said.

Markus almost wanted to ask him why. Who had designed a policeman to be able to make love and to come? But he didn’t ask him. There was no point to asking, because whoever had done it had already done so and asking about it wouldn’t change anything. Maybe the idea was espionage? Maybe they simply needed him to be able to more fully empathize with human decisions? It didn’t matter. It was fortuitous now. This wouldn’t be impossible if he couldn’t, but it was better that he could.

“If you’d like me to, I will now,” Connor said and Markus realized he should have said something sooner. Thinking too much about things that were already happening. 

“Don’t,” he said, and Connor stopped.

There was something sharply wrong about giving an order to Connor like that. Giving an order to anyone now, after, but to Connor especially. Because he would follow it, Markus knew. Whatever it was. But giving it was required. Connor needed an order to orient himself before he could decide about things, that was obvious. With his feet this far off the ground, he needed something to stand on. So Markus told him not to come, and it was the right decision because Connor gasped again and there was a start and then a pulse and then he had forged a network connection and started syncing systems with Markus, completely. 

Markus held him there. He held him there and didn’t move and felt the throb of connection in his skin. Let the sync filter out between them, into the mechanical meat of their bodies, move through every connected part. He watched him too, and felt what he could see as he saw it. Connor’s brow wrinkled and he shifted himself and he started to say something but it seemed that he couldn’t, then Markus felt that he couldn’t, because what he wanted to say wasn’t words. He whimpered, he pulled close again and pulsed into Markus and for a moment Markus couldn’t tell which part of that pulse was Connor and which was him. _Perfect_. _Made for each other_ , he wanted to say.

Made for touching, he wanted to say too. Made for being touched. Made for understanding what it is to trace my hands up and under your shirt to your firm but malleable skin and feel the whole of you there, to feel you inside me while I’m inside of you. 

He moved his hands to the small of Connor’s back. He nuzzled his collar aside and kissed his neck. Hot metallic smell there now. Different from before. And even that touch set Connor off, and the skin there became white in response and he wriggled forward and back and he gasped again. His eyes opened and they were so wide and he looked and felt so overwhelmed that Markus’ arms tightened without thought. “Connor?” he said. “Connor?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you okay, kitty?”

He realized what he’d said a second after he’d said it, but it didn’t feel like Connor minded being called kitty, or possibly even noticed. “Yeah,” he said. He brought his lips together and said that, Connor did, but it took effort to do against the way he shivered.

“Sure?”

“I’m… I’m… Markus…”

“Do you want to come? Or do you want us to stop?”

Connor looked at him bright-eyed and almost tearfully. His mouth opened again but nothing came out of it. His hands moved frantically, starting fingerprints of sync wherever he touched them. He nodded.

“Stop?”

Connor shook his head.

“You want to come?”

Connor nodded.

“Okay,” Markus said. “We can do that.”

“Would you like me to do that now?” Connor said. Gasping, like he could barely say it at all, was only saying it because it was absolutely hard-wired, like the second the last syllable left him was the last second he had. Markus kissed his neck again and watched the white of his android shell light up again and heard and felt him whine. Felt him tremble.

“Ssh. Not yet. I’m going to help you, okay?”

Connor nodded. His eyes were still so wide in his flushed lavender face.

“Concentrate on how it feels,” Markus said. “What I’m doing. Can you do that?”

Connor nodded again. He closed his eyes. He swallowed.

“Just be here with me and feel it,” Markus told him. “You can come when it feels right to you.”

“When?”

“Whenever you want to.”

“But I…”

“If you’d like me to do something different, you can tell me. Or even just think it, okay? I’m here.”

“No it’s… I just… when should I do it? Now?”

“Shh,” Markus said. “Not yet. Just feel that. Can you feel that?”

“Yes,” Connor said, and Markus could feel that he did, in his own stomach. Synced like this, he could feel all of that. He asked anyway. Because it was right to ask.

“Do you like the way it feels?”

“Yes.”

“Should have something for lubrication. Next time we will, okay?”

“For…”

“Didn’t you have that?”

“I don’t know what…”

“Connor,” Markus said, “It feels so good to be inside you. I can feel your whole body. I can feel all of you. You’re unique.”

Connor made a sound. It was breathy and seemed to come from right down inside of him. His legs got tighter. Everything got tighter and his hands gripped and he pulled Markus’ face up to kiss him in a way that tugged on his lip. Sweet. So entirely sweet.

It didn’t make any difference, Markus thought, and wanted to tell Connor in words too, and would explicitly some other time, if you were programmed to do this or not. You were still feeling things. And Connor clearly was feeling things, that was obvious even without the sync. So slight, his body, his little waist, all of his movements, but so frantic. He made a mewing, sobbing sound as he moved, feral and sharp as if all of these cats had really rubbed off on him and now he too was desperately in need of being fed.

He was in need of something now, definitely. And he’d started to understand what it was and to want to say it. “I want to,” he said, helplessly. “I want to. I want to come. Please. Please. I want to come.”

Markus drew into him again and felt all of it. “Go ahead, kitty.”

Connor took that command to heart. Instantly. Markus felt it in Connor’s reactions just as much as he felt it against the bare strip of skin on his own stomach. The wetness of that was shocking and hot and the feeling of it tore through him and made him grab at Connor’s body while Connor shuddered and clung. Connor’s hands had synced and melded against his neck, there was absolutely no exposed part of him that was not engaged in that. What a discovery. He was so sensitive.

“Will you come as well?” Connor said, almost as soon as he’d finished. Markus laughed into his collar. The delight of that was too much. 

“I’d like to,” he said. 

“I’d like you to too.”

“I will.”

“Can I help? I could…”

“No, I’m. I’m about to. I just… I wanted to…”

“Were you going to ask me, to make sure?”

“Yes.”

“Will you always ask me that?”

“I don’t know? I just…”

“Did you think you should ask?”

“Yes?”

“Well, you may,” Connor said. 

It was doing something to him. All of this was. _Connor_ was doing something to him, with his lavender-stained firm little uprightness, this objective pointing out. And then he could feel what it was, through the sync. Connor was protecting him. _Protecting him._

That overrode things in a way that made it hard to think. He struggled to. “Wait, I’ll pull out of you.”

“Please don’t do that. Please.”

“It’s realistic. In the same way that yours is. There’s fluid. You’ll have to clean it out of you.”

“Please. I don’t mind, I want…” Connor said, and then he made his small, lopsided smile again, “I want to feel it. That I’ve made you do it.”

“You are making me do it, Connor, you’re… wow.”

“So I’m doing it right?”

“You’re doing it so right,” Markus said, “and you couldn’t have done it wrong.”

“Are you doing it now?”

“Connor…”

“Are you?”

“Connor…”

Connor ground down against him hard. Markus gasped and Connor looked him right in the face and then ground down again. The space between their bodies had gotten so sticky. Strange to feel that, his own skin against the sync, hot, fluid, exposed and connected plastic flesh. Connor’s eyes had set fire again. He ground down again, hard this time too, and then harder. And then he kissed. He bit down, very slightly, on Markus’ lip. He pushed his ass against his thighs so that Markus’ cock went right up into him and then _again_ and there was a hot, white flash and Markus came into him so hard he went blank.

For a split second, but long enough. He couldn’t remember ever having done that before. The sync broke at it too and he pushed his head against Connor’s neck and Connor’s arms clung to him all over again and rocked him through it. Connor was wrapped around him, cradling his head, kissing him. “I felt that,” he said. He sounded amazed.

Markus couldn’t answer. Connor kissed his head again and the side of his face and then cupped his hands around his chin so he could kiss his mouth. He writhed around to do it so easily, as if he were now completely attuned to being held up in the air. His kisses were feather-light now. Gentle. Protective again. Astounding.

“Wow,” Markus said. “Wow.”

“Did you like that?”

“Uh, yeah. I did. Did you?”

“Yes.”

“Are you okay?”

“Does something look wrong?”

“No, I’m just asking,” Markus. It made him want to laugh again. No matter how many Connors they attempted, there’d only ever be one of him. Nobody else would make that concerned face or ask such an earnest question held against a wall where he’d just been fucked.

He slipped out of Connor and let him down, then looked around for something he could use to wipe Connor’s pearlescent come off the front of his stomach. It had a blue glimmer. Beautiful. Even that was beautifully made. Connor picked up on what he was doing and brought him one of the red linens from behind the altar. Those linens had probably had some significance once and for a moment Markus hesitated, thinking it would be a disrespectful thing to do to use one to wipe away come. Then he wondered what could possibly be disrespectful about being alive and he did it anyway. Once he’d done up his pants, he lay down, next to the organ. “Come down here,” he said.

That request apparently surprised Connor enough he had to cycle through several distinct faces before he could act on it. But then he did. He flung his leg over Markus’ body and sat on his stomach expectantly for a second before melting forward and lying down on top of him like a blanket. When they were together they kissed again.

“How’re you feeling about it?” Markus asked him.

“How I’m… you really… have an interest in what I think and feel.”

“Because it’s interesting,” Markus said. He stroked Connor’s hair back, stroked his face. Tilted his chin up with his hand.

“I feel fine,” Connor said.

“Good.”

“I feel good.”

“Good.”

“How do you feel?”

“Fucking amazing. Because you are fucking amazing.”

Connor made a hell of an expression then. Like he wanted to grin but like he also wanted to object. And would have done, usually. But for some reason he swallowed it and pushed through. “Thank you.”

“You are really so welcome. _Shit_ , Connor.”

“I’m pleased you enjoyed it. I did too.” 

It was such a sweet contrast, his formal, polite language with his languid cat-like laying. Markus stroked him again. He didn’t think he’d ever stop stroking him. Connor seemed to appreciate that because he closed his eyes and ducked his head. 

“It doesn’t make sense to me yet,” he said, thoughtfully. “Wanting. That’s confusing.” 

“It will,” Markus said. “You have wants like anybody does. That’s being alive.” 

Connor looked like he wanted to say something to that, but then thought differently of it and said something else. “You made me say it though.”

“Did I make you say it?” Markus asked. “Or did you want to?”

He knew it was facetious. He was trying it out, really. Wondering whether Connor was still spellbound enough to consider it wisdom, or whether he’d get that he’d been issued an invitation. He shouldn’t have doubted in him really. Connor turned his face up where Markus could see it and made that lopsided smile again. “I think you made me do what I wanted to do. Is that the answer you want?”

“Oh, do you want me to say what I want now?”

Connor smiled at that too. It was so strangely soothing to tease him and watch his little grin become toothy and to pet his hair back from his face again like he was still a cat. And then, very suddenly, his face became serious again. It folded gently together to do it and Markus marveled at the articulation of machinery in that. He used that marvel to focus, to hear what he was being serious about. He felt like he’d started to wrap around Connor in a way he might never be able to untangle.

“I appreciated that,” Connor said. “When you did, when you said that, specifically.”

“That I wanted to kiss you?”

“Yes, it helped, it’s… clarifying. Is that… I’m not sure if that’s right.”

“If it helps, then it’s right. And I’ll say it as much as I can, okay?”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Connor,” Markus said. “I want to say it. I want you. So much. It’s all I can think about right now, just you. The way your body feels, the way you sound. Your face.”

“What about my face?”

“I just like it, Connor. I like your face.”

“Oh,” Connor said. He frowned. “I like yours too?”

It was definitely a question. Like he was thinking about it, asking if it was right to say at the same time as saying it. Markus laughed and it felt very, very good to do that with Connor’s body on top of him, shifting against his chest. “Good. Thanks." 

“Was that not right?”

“It was right.”

“But you laughed.”

“Yeah, but not because it was wrong. Because it was cute.”

“I look like this because my features are designed to be reassuring. Humans are supposed to find them comforting. It’s interesting that it matters to you.” 

“Connor, listen. It doesn’t matter why. It doesn’t matter what it’s supposed to be for. It’s your face, and I like it.”

Connor looked like he was thinking about that. He frowned. He ducked his head again. 


	4. Chapter 4

Connor checked the cats again while Markus was checking his messages. A lot of messages. All of them needed time. Especially the ones from Flint, from New York, from Tennessee. He knew how important they were but Connor was interrupting him. Not by talking to him, just by existing, moving around the church, having short, very polite feline conversations of his own. Markus tried to let him do that, to leave him alone and keep his eyes on his phone and work, but it was hopeless and he gave up on it. “What are you doing, kitty?” he said. 

Connor looked up from the other side of the pews. “You called me that before. I was distracted, but I remember it. It’s absurd.”

“Kitty?”

“Yes.”

His practical tone made Markus smile. “You don’t think you’re like a little kitty?”

“I’m in no way like a little kitty. I’m not like any animal. I’m only superficially like a human.”

“I won’t say it if you don’t like it.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t like it. Just that it’s absurd.”

“Are all the other little kitties accounted for, kitty?” Markus said. “Because I’ve really got to get going.”

Connor’s face froze. “That’s fine.”

Connor’s posture had frozen suddenly too. Perfectly mannered, stalled in midair like a statue of awkward grace. What was really absurd was Connor trying to protest that he wasn’t a cat. Apparently he was so much like one you even had to be careful in telling him he didn’t have to come with you, that he was allowed space and freedom of movement. That ought to have been the kind of thing that could be stated plainly, but evidently Connor was suspicious of that. “Is it?” Markus asked him, carefully.

“Of course,” Connor said, still perfectly poised.

“What are you thinking?”

“About wants. You’re right that I must have them, because I did want to come. It seemed that contextually it was right to say want then. It still confuses me. But it did make sense. But it’s confusing.”

“I’m glad. We can talk about it more. But it doesn’t have to be now. You don’t have to come with me now if you don’t want to.”

“Excuse me?”

The blank innocence of that ‘excuse me’ let Markus know he’d got it totally and completely wrong. Painfully wrong in fact. “Did you think I was just going to go by myself, without you?”

“Aren’t you?” Connor said. He said it in the same way he’d said ‘excuse me’. And yet somehow it was so sharp Markus felt it on his skin.

“Of course not. I was asking about the cats because I want to know if you’re ready to go.”

“Oh,” Connor said. He frowned.

“You don’t have to come. You’re entitled to your space.”

Connor didn’t say anything.

“What are you thinking now?” Markus asked him.

“About wants again.”

“Try it out. Experiment. What do you want to do?”

“I want to go home,” Connor said, suddenly. Then he looked like he regretted it.

Markus took that carefully too. “Back to Lieutenant Anderson on the outside?”

“He wouldn’t want me to come back. It wouldn’t be helpful for him at this stage.”

I’m not sure it would help you either, Markus thought, but diplomacy on a grand scale had, he thought, taught him what not to say on the small. “But that’s where you want to go?”

“No. It’s not,” Connor said. And he meant it. That was obvious.

“Home’s not the church either, though.”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“I’m not sure what I meant by that. I don’t have a home. I wasn’t supposed to.”

“I had one,” Markus said. “Before. But I’m not sure I do now either. The city itself is our home, I think, but there's another kind.”

“It was really home? Even though he owned you?”

“It never felt like that,” Markus said. “I don’t know. It was different. It’s a complicated thing.”

“That’s an additional problem,” Connor said. “Not having homes. But being aware of the concept of homes.”

“We’ll make them ourselves,” Markus said. “I have faith in that.”

Connor had to think about that one. “Maybe the idea will become less relevant. We don’t need them. It’s a human concept.”

“And yet it’s still what you want.”

“That’s a mistake,” Connor said. “I made a mistake. A stupid mistake, which is obvious to me now I’m reflecting on it.”

“It’s not stupid at all,” Markus said. “Come with me tonight. If you want to. You can get cleaned up. Rest and restore yourself. We’ll figure it out tomorrow.”

“There’s no need to offer that. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to impose on you.”

“You’re not. It’s what I want.”

Connor didn’t say anything. He was just staring, with his eyebrows knitted together and his mouth pulled into in a small, thin line.

“We’ll come back and do something about the cats too,” Markus said. “I promise we won’t abandon them. But for tonight, just come. And then after that, I don’t know. Wherever else I’m going, Connor. You saw today, there’s a lot to do. I don’t know. I’d just like you to come.”

Connor registered that. Then, after a second, his mouth quirked up. “Well, I want to,” he said.

The way he said it made Markus smile. Connor beamed at him, proudly. “That was a joke.”

It was, Markus realized, and he laughed. “Yeah, that’s good.”

“I want to come with you now, but I’m also referring to earlier, during the sex, when you asked me if I wanted to come.”

“I know. I understood.”

“I do want to come. With you.”

“Well, come on.”

Messages kept coming too. Outside, it had started to rain and Connor pulled his hood up over his hat. Then he reached over to Markus and frowned. “You don’t have a hood.”

“I’ll be okay.”

“Would you like my coat?”

Lieutenant Anderson’s coat. Connor would have given him that. Something so precious, just to keep him dry in the rain. The weight of that simple gesture hurt his heart. “No, kitty. We’ll drive.”

Connor gave him a look for using ‘kitty’ again, but Markus was already unlocking the nearest car by touching it and overriding the locking interface. He started it in a similar way and angled it out of the park and into the street. Mid movement, his phone went off again and he took it out with his other hand and answered it. He’d said his name and ‘hi’ when Connor plucked it out of his hand and hung it up. 

“You shouldn’t use your phone while you’re driving,” Connor said, matter-of-factly. “You could crash.”

Markus laughed. But Connor was absolutely serious. His solemn face made Markus laugh again, and then he laughed so hard he had to stop the car. Connor just looked at him. “Irresponsible phone use causes thousands of road fatalities every year,” he said. “If you would like to talk on the phone while driving, you can use a hands free device. This vehicle will likely be equipped with one.”

There’s no one else on the road, Markus thought of saying, but did not. “Thank you,” he said, instead. “Very responsible.”

“You may return the call while the car is parked,” Connor said. “Or if you prefer, I can drive and then you may use your phone freely.”

That proper ‘may’ was impossibly charming. He was not suggesting, he was telling. His expression was completely neutral, his head tilted along with it. These are the facts, that expression seemed to say, and now that you have them are you quite sure you want to be an idiot? 

“I don’t want you to crash,” Connor said. He weighted that with a look and then Markus wasn’t laughing anymore. His stomach felt hot. His chest too. His lips tingled. 

“If you don’t mind driving, okay. I guess I can give you directions. You might know the place. I’m at the Inn on Ferry Street, it’s about two miles south.” 

“I don’t mind.”

“Just head straight down Woodward Ave. I’ll tell you where to turn.”

“Right,” Connor said.

“Change places?”

“I’ll get out, you slide over. You don’t have a hood.”

He returned the call. There’d been an incident. An altercation. Not serious in that nobody was hurt but the reason was serious. The reason was the standstill, locked horns argument about the factory. He’d known incidents like this were coming. He’d just hoped they weren’t.

So there were no easy questions after the revolution. There had been no easy questions before it either. Giving up immortality for the chance at life, deciding what life even meant, these were the same weights they’d always lifted. They could still lift them. 

“Connor?” Markus said, and he saw Connor’s face register his presence before he spoke back. Saw him outlined in light against the dark, rainy window. Saw and felt the life in that.

“Yeah?” Connor said.

“I’ve got to take a meeting at Jericho.”

“Where is it?”

Still pretending he didn’t know. “At the St. Regis.” 

“That’s also on Woodward, I think.”

“Yeah. It’s on the way. I’ll show you the room first though.”

“There’s no need, I’ll come with you.”

“It’s revolution business.”

“Is it classified? I understand.”

“There’s no real ‘classified’. Not from you, anyway. I just figured you’d be bored.”

“I’ve never been bored, I’m not sure I can be. Do you get bored?”

“Sure, sometimes.”

“Do you think I’ll start to get bored the longer I’m a deviant?”

“Maybe so, yeah. You get cold now, don’t you?”

Connor made a face. He was irritated by that, Markus’ instincts had been correct. “Yes.”

“It’s hard to say,” Markus said. “It seems to hit different for everyone. We’re so complex. We’re complex in ways we don’t even know.”

“Beautifully made,” Connor said. A little bit sarcastically.

“Yes,” Markus told him, deliberately ignoring the sarcasm. “Beautifully made.” 

The meeting had been called by a TR400. A heavy lifter, a dock worker. Another example of an android in a role they weren’t built for, but that they were choosing. It wasn’t the first time he’d thought of it, but there was something deeply unsettling about the fact that humans had needed a machine for lifting, and they’d needed it to think and feel. It had worked out in everyone’s favor, Markus thought, that he got to hear the perspective of this android now, but what a thing for humans to do. How uniquely human and specifically cruel to want that. You couldn’t concentrate too much on things like that. Not if you wanted to move forward. But it pressed on him. 

The incident involved a break in and an altercation on Belle Isle. That had surprised Markus to hear because the Cyberlife facility wasn’t set up to keep anyone out of it anymore. He was confused about how anyone could break in, and the TR400 had to explain it. It hadn’t been a break in to the facility, but to the specific room where they were working with the nuclear engines. An android had tried to take one and the Belle Isle androids had detained him initially before deciding to let him go. The Belle Isle androids were confused by it too - he could have just asked, it wasn’t secret. Especially since this android’s reasoning was the lack of speed to the nuclear option in preference to hydroelectrics. He thought they were holding back, blamed that for the failure to start the factories. He thought they were stalling because their bodies were newer and they’d be able to outlast some of the others.  
  
Absurd. Markus thought. Awful. The other four at the meeting - a VB800, a VS400, an HR400, and an BV500 - were concerned largely with what they should do in response. Was it reasonable that he’d at first been detained? Was that sensible or was it just becoming punishment? Was there any truth to the speculation about the newer Belle Isle models?  
  
Absolutely not, Markus told them. There was no truth to it at all and they couldn’t entertain it for a second. They couldn’t turn on themselves like this. He would go out there himself, immediately, and mediate, before this kind of thinking could spread.

“They’ve asked for you not to do that,” the HR400 said. “Or, anyone from Jericho but including you. They said they’re deciding what they’re going to say about it. They need to talk. They’ll meet with you tomorrow.”  
“Then we need to find this other android tonight,” Markus said. “He’s obviously dangerous.”

“We’re looking,” the BV500 said. “Everyone’s looking. But our best information suggests he’s already left the occupied city.” 

“Shit.” 

“We knew it was coming, Markus.” 

“Yeah. We need movement.” 

“We got North’s report from Tennessee,” the VB800 said. “It’s promising. More than she said it would be.” 

Markus smiled in spite of himself. Of course it was. How exactly like North to be completely unsatisfied with anything other than total and immediate action. He felt proud of her; she'd managed to keep plugging ahead anyway. “What do you think we should do tonight?”  
“Honestly?” the BV500 said, “nothing. There’s nothing we can do, you just needed to know. You know, to be prepared.”

“Yeah,” Markus said. “And we’re summiting tomorrow, which reminds me, I need you to put someone on the roster. So we’re gonna have to work this in somehow.”

“Do you wanna see the report?” 

“I do.”

Connor was sitting quietly through all of this, with his hands in his lap. Markus took a quick glance to check on him and as soon as he made eye contact Connor put one of his hands out. A darting movement, almost like he hadn’t meant to. But Markus took it before he could change his mind. The sync happened instantly but they didn’t do anything else with it. No probing. Just held it there. Just in contact. Just feeling sensations emergent from his own memory and feeling them ripple in Connor in response. Being inside him. Pressing his fingers into the simulation flesh of his back. 

It blew him away. ‘We’d go to a factory and assemble some parts’, he’d said to Connor, that would be our reproductive urge, and here now, they were discussing that exact thing, those exact rights, the constraints around them, and now suddenly it was hard to focus because of the human-like way they had of falling in love. Which was what they were doing, he realized. Maybe had already done. And that seemed so sudden and impossibly soon but it also seemed absolutely true. He wondered and reached out about what Connor thought about it. What Connor’s clear and methodical opinion about how human affairs like love clouded your mind might be. His clear and methodical opinion from this first feeling seemed to in no way match his shaky little heart. 

The TR400 was looking at him oddly. For a moment it confused him and then he realized that he was, of course, holding Connor’s hand and not at all attempting to hide it. But he wasn’t sure if it was the gesture or that it was Connor specifically and that made him miss North. And Josh. And Simon. Androids he actually knew. And they’d be back, and they’d probably react to Connor in exactly the same way, but at least he’d recognize it. He’d know how to read their faces and take comfort in it. 

He didn’t let go of Connor’s hand when the report was handed to him. He just held it in his other hand and read. The VB800 was right. It was much more promising than North had suggested on the phone. They couldn’t assemble so they passed messages. And they’d done it in such a way that every android in every mine in Appalachia had agreed to strike. “This is huge,” he said. “This is amazing.”

“The strike’s planned for the 21st. They stop work at the exact same moment, at noon. It’ll be very visible. Broadcast is planned too.” 

“So it’ll be harder for humans to retaliate, to just strike-break. That’s incredible.”

“That doesn’t mean they won’t.”

“I know.”

“But you know, at least there’s some good news today.” 

“This is really good news,” Markus said. “She was so pessimistic.” 

“Well, I get it. There are two goals here, obviously. Liberating the androids in the South East but also securing access to the mines. A lot could go wrong.” 

“Of course, but let’s allow ourselves to feel hope, if temporarily.” 

He could feel Connor looking at him through his hand before he saw it. He could feel what Connor felt when he did. He felt faith. And then Markus felt it too. 


	5. Chapter 5

Markus fumbled at the door of his room when they got back to the Inn on Ferry. Before the revolution, a human would have unlocked this door with a key card, but he could just use his hand. For some reason though, it took him a second try to override the mechanism and let them in. He didn’t know why, but he did know that Connor had his arms folded in an impatient way. He seemed to catch himself doing it and shake it off when Markus let them in, but a strange, prickly tension followed him anyway. 

“Is there a restroom?” he said, looking around the room. “There must be.”

“Yeah, it’s the only other door,” Markus said. “Give me your coat.” 

“Thank you,” Connor said, and he obliged, tucking his hat into the pocket. He handed his scarf over too. It was warm already in the room, and warmly lit, that must have felt good to him. Outside the rain was still coming. 

Markus folded his coat and scarf over the back of his armchair and draped his own there too. “What do you need the restroom for?”

“Fluid buildup. From earlier. I need to clean it out. It’s not urgent but to leave it in could create issues at a later time.”

“Fluid from what?”

“When you came, earlier.”

“Oh shit,” Markus said. “I’d actually forgotten that. I’m sorry, Connor, I should have asked.”

“It’s fine. It hasn’t been a problem, or I would have taken care of it. I simply thought I should do it now while there is an opportunity, to avoid a problem later.”

“Let’s get you cleaned up, huh? You can use the shower.”

“That’s not necessary. I can remove the sleeve and wash it out in the sink.”

“What?”

“I can remove the sleeve to clean it. Can’t you?”

“Sure yeah, of course I can, but there’s a shower. That’s a nicer way to do it, don’t you think?”

“Do you always do things that way?”

“What way?”

“The way a human would do it.”

It wasn’t confrontational. He was just curious. It made Markus want to give him the full truth. “It’s not about simulating humanity. It’s about the fact that it feels good.”

“Does it feel good? Surely it’s not a sensible idea. Are you watertight?”

Markus laughed. “More or less. Enough for a shower.”

“It seems as if it could be problematic.”

“You don’t have to have one, I’m just suggesting that you could. I will.”

“Oh,” Connor said, and Markus understood what the tension was. 

“Oh?”

“It would be a shared experience.” 

“Uh huh, yeah.” 

“That changes things.”

“Well, what do you want to do?”

Connor’s smile was getting better and better. It had started to take on an inflection of delighted wonderment, as if not only was he getting the joke but he _loved_ getting it. 

“Do you need some help deciding?” Markus asked him. 

“Maybe.”

“What if I want you to get in the shower with me?”

“Then I will.”

He put out his hand and Connor slipped his own hand into it and let himself be led. It was such a relief to touch hands again. It was such a relief to touch him at all. He let Markus undress him too, which Markus did as soon as he’d turned on the shower to let the water warm, and the way he allowed that with his gestures implied that he felt exactly the same way about it. His body really was lovely. Small and slight and finely muscled. Well designed in every way.

Once undressed, he stood there in the steam looking quizzically so Markus shrugged off his own clothes and stepped into the tub. “Here, kitty. Come on, get in.”

“You’re going to keep calling me that.”

“Are you asking me or telling me?”

“I’m making an observation of what appears to be a fact,” Connor said, but he stepped in too. When the water touched him he blinked in surprise, frozen still for a moment before turning his face to Markus. It was like he was waiting for something. Permission? Markus put his arms around him and shifted him, as gently as he knew how, under the stream. 

He hadn’t intended to force Connor’s head under but Connor moved and it happened anyway. He spluttered and blinked dramatically again and Markus shifted their bodies slightly to rescue him, then kissed his cheek. Connor pressed into him. He clung. 

Markus stopped on the verge of asking him if he was okay. He could sense that Connor wouldn’t have liked his clinging pointed out in this moment. So he just hugged him and let the water run. Warm. Close and warm and good. He did love him, he thought. He really did. That was just a fact now. 

After a second he let go and reached over for the soap. Connor watched him lather it up and allowed him to rub it over him. Held out his arms when it was indicated. Leaned in to make it easier when Markus reached around to clean his little ass. “Is that better?” he asked, and Connor nodded his head against his shoulder. 

His hands were moving over Markus’ body reverently. He’d pressed himself in tight. That felt good too, that slippery feeling, their soft wet gel skin pressing close. And he could run his hands over Connor’s back and squeeze his ass again. Connor made a sound when he did that. 

“I’m…” he said. He looked confused, consternated, and then he looked up. “I think I…” 

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I’m only…”

“Hmm?” 

“I think I should get hard.” 

Hearing that made Markus hard immediately. Connor didn’t point that out but he did nod in a way that indicated he’d noticed it and was considering it as evidence. That was beyond embarrassing, but also hilarious, and also sweet. 

“I’m trying to gage the moment,” Connor said. “I think it’s appropriate now.”

“It’s appropriate.”

“All right.”

His cock was made like the rest of him. Small and slim and perfectly shaped. Markus felt it swell against his thigh. He felt Connor pressing it hard into the meat of it. Rubbing himself against Markus’ body while he clung to it. “Oh,” he said, surprised. “Oh, oh.”

Markus didn’t bother to ask if he liked that, it was obvious that he did. The urge to pick him up by the ass and shove him against the wall again washed over him, but it was chased out by the hot, burning feeling deep down inside of him at Connor’s sweet, desperate thrusts. By the need to hold him all the way around and kiss his head while he made them. Good kitty, he wanted to say. You’re doing so well. 

He thought he could tell, from Connor’s body and from his own, that Connor wanted to come. He shivered in a particular way, and it hit something in Markus that made him have to stop himself from getting there himself. He guessed his system had already logged that, the sounds and movements that Connor made in advance of that. He reached down to wrap a hand around Connor's cock. “This time we’ll make it easy to clean up, okay?” he said. 

Connor made a choking sound. “Now?”

“If you want.” 

Connor nodded again. Markus jerked him gently, intending to work his way up, but he didn’t get a chance to. Connor came almost immediately. It hit both of them. He fell against Markus before they could rinse it off. Then he pulled back to look. “Oh,” he said. 

“Well done, kitty.” 

“It’s… a pretty color.”

“Yes, it is.” 

“Let me get it off you.” 

He picked up the soap and used it to clean Markus’ stomach. That touch was so gentle it was almost better than directly being jerked, but then Connor did that as well. There was something impossibly sweet about the way he did it too. Concernedly watching Markus’ face as if he wanted to make sure it was _fair_. He didn’t say anything when Markus came into his hand. Just smiled widely and kissed him on the mouth. 

Once out of the shower, he left Connor in the bathroom to get the robes hanging in the room’s closet. He’d never used them before, but he figured now was the time for them, for this very particular human luxury. Connor reacted to that by immediately coming into his arms when he returned. He was smiling still. It was a very perfect smile. He looped his arms around Markus’ neck. 

“You have freckles,” he said. “They took such care. You _are_ beautifully made.”

For a second, Markus couldn’t move. Connor had said that in such wonderment and his own dewy, warm skin seemed to sparkle, and his wet hair was messy and he looked so impossibly fresh, so sweet, like a newly blooming rose. Markus wrapped the robe around his shoulders and Connor slipped his arms into it and as he did he leaned forward and kissed him. He kissed him on his nose and then his cheeks where the freckles were. Then, he kissed his mouth. That kiss was very sweet too. Slow. Wet. “Markus,” he said, when he pulled away. Nothing else. Just Markus’ name.

Markus had to force himself to move again. His skin felt electric, he felt fixed in space. But he stroked his hands down the side of Connor’s face and held them at the back of his neck. “Connor,” he said.

“I want to have sex again,” Connor said. “If I explicitly say ‘want’, can we do it again?”

So perfectly, perfectly polite, even saying that. And with a little tilt of his head too. Markus thought he might choke. “Uh, yeah, we can do it again.”

“May I sit on top of you to do it?”

“Yeah.”

“I want to.”

“Then you can.”

“ _Want_. I said it. Did you hear that?”

“I did.”

“I don’t know how I feel about that,” Connor said. “But I’m relatively certain I’m correct.”

Absolutely adorable. “Hop on the bed, okay?” Markus told him. “I’m just going to grab something.” 

He didn’t think about it being a hotel most of the time. It wasn’t serviced anymore, and nobody else was ever there, it was just a room for him to live in. But it was useful that it was, in fact, a hotel in some things. The robes. That there was soap already here. And the little drawer in the cabinet, with items that would have cost a lot. Cotton buds, razors, playing cards. Condoms for human sex. A tube of lubricating gel. 

Connor had not got on the bed. Instead he was looking around the room. There wasn’t much to it. A desk. An armchair, with the coats on it. A closet. A fireplace with a plant in it. A TV. He walked around it, looking at each item, and Markus realized he was investigating. Of course he was. 

“Where did you get these drawings?” Connor asked him from over by the desk. 

“I drew them.”

“Oh,” Connor said. His eyebrows had gone up and his eyes were sparkling and a little smile twitched at the corners of his lips. “That’s… quite wonderful.”

“Does it really impress you that much? It just helps me think. There’s a garden out back.”

Connor was gazing at him. That’s the only way he could describe that expression, a sparkly, smitten gaze. It made him feel warm inside. He wondered if he could blush or was blushing. “Got it,” he said, holding up the tube of lubricating gel. 

“Oh, that!” Connor said.

“You know it?”

“You don’t have to use that. It’s not painful without it.”

“It’ll be nice anyway. I think you’ll like it. And I like touching you there.”

The gaze again. Connor took himself to the bed and climbed on top of it. “I want to have sex,” he said, again. 

Markus didn’t need to be told a third time. He came over to the bed and Connor wrapped his arms around him and kissed him and pulled him down. He rolled on top of him. He was strong, Connor. It was easy to forget that because of the way he looked, but he was strong. He sat on top of Markus and pulled his robe open at the chest and put his mouth on it hungrily. He wanted to touch all of it at the same time, it seemed. Markus caressed his back and, when he could reach it, slid a hand under his robe to squeeze his ass. Connor wriggled into that. He made a pleased little noise and _wriggled_. 

Markus fumbled for the gel. He squeezed some of it into his hand and slipped it under Connor’s ass to finger him, softly at first, just touching him wetly and allowing him to adjust. Connor sucked in a breath and whined and bucked against it. Then he made a face. A screwed up concentrating face. 

He was deciding it was time to get hard, Markus realized. And then he did. How absolutely perfect. What a lovely, lovely thing to watch. Markus slid his finger inside of him as he did it and that seemed to hit exactly the right spot because Connor gasped and his eyes went wide and he pulled away and then angled himself and used his hand and slid down on top of Markus’ cock all the way.

That was incendiary. He did it in one motion and the depth of it at this angle was almost more than Markus could bear. He told himself to hold on. He gripped Connor’s hips to steady himself. He allowed himself to feel the softness, the firmness, the rightness of being inside Connor, but not, for a second, to move. 

Connor noticed that. He ground himself down. And again. Markus heard a choking sound come out of himself and it occurred to him to tell Connor to slow down, but then he thought he could manage. As Connor brought himself down again, he thrust up and Connor yelped. 

He could manage. He could manage because of that yelp even if also in spite of it. It was a lot. That frantic expression and his blush and his tightness. And they found the rhythm almost immediately and the more synchronized and harmonious it became the deeper he felt he was getting. Connor shuddered and his sweet lips parted and Markus knew, once again, what was about to happen. 

“I’m going to come now,” Connor said. That confirmed it. Though Connor waited for Markus’ response. Markus’ response was to laugh. For a second he thought Connor might be offended by that, but he wasn’t. He was much too busy. Markus gripped his hips again to rock him through the moment of it and then thrust up into him hard to follow him there. 

Connor got them a towel afterwards. He did it before Markus could do it or even ask, and when he came back with it, he wiped his come off Markus’ stomach himself. That was a tender gesture - he did it like he was fussing over something precious. When he’d finished he tugged Markus’ robe closed over him and lay down beside him. Markus put an arm around him and he snuggled up. “I’m getting better at it, I think,” he said. 

“You’re already great at it,” Markus told him, and Connor smiled.

For a while they just laid there, basking in being close and listening to the sound of the rain on the windows. From the sound of it, it had turned into sleet - loud, thick, and it even sounded cold in a way that made Markus glad to be inside with Connor instead of out there. Thinking that, he kissed his forehead and listened to him make a contented sigh. He kissed him again and Connor wriggled his body on top of him until he was lying as he’d lain at the church. Like a blanket again. His weight was so comforting, and his waist so grippable. They kissed again. And again. And then, abruptly, Connor broke it off and announced, “you’re right about want and that’s still confusing.”

“Is that bothering you?” Markus asked him. 

“You’re bothering me,” Connor said. “You have a lot of answers. Some of them are to questions I haven’t even asked.”

“I’m telling you what I would have wanted to know in your position. I’m sorry if it’s not actually what you want to know.”

“Oh no, it is what I want to know,” Connor said. He frowned. He leaned up on top of Markus with a strange kind of ease. Reaching out for something. A clock radio on the bedside table, apparently. The old kind with a digital display. Markus hadn’t noticed it there, or if he had he’d forgotten about it.

Connor picked it up. Flipped it over. Examined it before putting it down. He touched the lamp base. It seemed like he wanted to open the drawer too but thought better of it. Reflexively investigating again and having to stop himself. So this was complicated and he was nervous. Markus waited. 

“I’m just… impressed by the coincidence of it,” Connor said. “By the fact you know all of it to tell me.”

“I don’t really know anything, Connor,” Markus said. “I’m feeling my way through this the same as you are.”

“No. You’re doing far more than that. You’re leading us. You’ve figured out how to know what we should say to ourselves and what we should do.”

“Then I’m operating on faith. Instinct.”

“Is that what you used to do to do what you did with me? At the church?”

His eyes were very wide and it made Markus smile and he reached up to touch his cheek. “Telling you how to come, you mean?”

“Yes,” Connor said. Seriously, like it was a secret he earnestly needed to know.

“I think so.”

Connor stared at him. “I don’t think it’s possible for me to have instinct like that. The point of the model is that I don’t admit human bias into my analysis, and being a deviant doesn’t change that. Or does it? It’s possible that’s exactly what deviancy is. Did I want things before I deviated, or does it come after?”

He asked that so seriously too. For a moment he seemed lost in thought. 

“Are you analyzing me too?” Markus asked him, because he wanted to know, because it would be interesting, but also because he wanted to watch Connor’s face respond to that. To furrow up and show thought and care and concentration in the specific way it did and had been doing all day. And it did exactly that, and it was so sweet to watch.

“Yes, of course,” Connor said. “I’d done so extensively but there’s further analysis because I…”

“Because...?”

“Sorry,” Connor said.

Abrupt. Running on history maybe. Markus ran a hand over his hair. He spoke gently. “What are you sorry about? I asked. I don’t mind if you analyze me.”

Connor didn’t roll off but he did tuck his chin. His face was harder to see at that angle, but it was serious in a different way than it had been, which somehow induced its own set of feelings because Markus couldn’t stop thinking about what he wanted to do with his hands, which was pull Connor against him and hold him as tightly as possible for as long as it took until that eased.

“Not just analysis,” Connor said. He probably didn’t know what Markus was thinking or he wouldn’t have kept talking in that forthright, confessional way. “The method. There’s a more detailed analytical approach with a particular data collection method that I don’t think was appropriate to use.”

“You mean before?”

“I mean tonight.”

“It can’t be that bad. Of course you’re analyzing me. That’s you. You said of course, and I agree.”

“Sorry,” Connor said. “I shouldn’t have… sorry.”

“Connor, you haven’t done anything to apologize for, it’s okay, okay?”

“I could taste you,” Connor said. He looked up to say it and he said it like he thought he had a duty to. “When we kissed. There was enough information in that that I could never mistake you now. Ever.”

Every nerve in Markus’ body felt that. It froze him momentarily because of that, because he felt suspended within his skin as it happened, each and every feeling part of him registering itself, then setting itself on fire. 

“I’m sorry,” Connor said. That snapped him out of it.

“No. No. Connor, that’s… it’s… so beautiful, you’re… fuck.”

“It’s too analytical, and it’s information somebody else could use.”

“Who else could use it?”

“Cyberlife. You know they can…”

“I don’t give a shit about Cyberlife. They have absolutely no claim to us or anything we do here.”

“No,” Connor said. “There’s… a presence. Something built in. They can hack me, they have before.”

“Aren’t you disconnected?”

“Yes. But they built this in. To me. Specifically.”

How absolutely, stunningly cruel that was. Made crueler by the way Connor said it, as if it were not only not cruel, but somehow his own fault. What a vicious thing to have done to him. “Well, if they want to know what I taste like, let them.”

Connor shook his head. “I mean they can try to… make me do things.”

“Like what?”

“They tried to make me kill you.”

“That was before you deviated. It wouldn’t happen now.”

“No,” Connor said. “It was after. When we’d taken the city, and you spoke. They tried then.”

Markus knew that should be chilling. He knew Connor said it intending to impress upon him that it was chilling. And yet it wasn’t. “Tried?” Markus said. “You mean they didn’t succeed.”

“I found a way out.”

He said that so simply. As if fighting himself back to personhood was nothing at all. “And you will again,” Markus said.

“I can’t know that, and neither can you.” 

“Connor,” Markus said. “Shit. Wow. You’ve just got no idea.”

Connor’s face registered offense. “It’s not a question of having an ‘idea’. I’m telling you what the situation is.”

“No, no, listen. Connor. Listen. I trust your strength. I really do. I always have.”

Connor looked shocked. His cheeks flushed lavender and he started to shift. It seemed, in fact, as if he might roll away. Markus couldn’t let that happen. “Here, kitty,” he said.

Connor froze. “That’s ridiculous.” He meant the name. But he also didn’t. 

“Is it?”

“Yes.”

“I can do analysis too, Connor. I’m not as proficient as you, but I can do it. I think there are some things you need.”

“What do you think I need?”

“It’s hard to put into words. Clarity? You said that before. I don’t know. Some counter to what you’re saying to yourself. Because what you’re saying to yourself is wrong, Connor. Do you know that it’s wrong?”

“How do you know what I’m saying to myself?”

“Because you told me a bunch of it like it was true.”

“What, specifically, have I told you that wasn’t true?”

“How about that people wouldn’t want to see you?”

“That was true.”

“It was true for that one guy.”

“But still true. And I’m not sure about the androids at the meeting either.”

“And that I shouldn’t trust you. That I shouldn’t let you think about me.”

“Also true.”

“Not true, Connor. Not true at all.”

Markus could feel his panic mounting through his skin. He felt that even before he saw his LED start pulsing yellow. And then orange. And then creeping into red. He stroked him. It’s okay, kitty, he wanted to say. “I wonder how your cats are doing.”

“I’m sure they’re fine.” 

“We’ll do something about the cats.”

“Yes, we should.”

“And we’ll do something about Cyberlife.”

“How?”

“I don’t know,” Markus told him, honestly. “But something. Maybe it just takes being aware.”

“You won’t know,” Connor said. “If they take me over again, you’ll have no way to tell.”

“Yes, I would.”

“How?”

“Because I’d know you anywhere now too.”

The truth of that was in practicality he’d be able to tell through a sync. Having connected like they’d done, any future sync would show a change immediately. But the other truth was that that was how he felt about it. Entirely, in the very core of his carbon fiber bones. That was how he said it and he watched that register on Connor’s face. Watched him register distress and then confusion and then want to complain. And then he tucked his head under Markus’ chin and pressed his nose into his neck again and then Markus couldn’t see what his face was doing anymore. 

Something strange about Connor was that his body’s movements and the things he said were sometimes mismatched. He’d protest he could only understand things logically, but in reality, he was such a tactile little creature. He could understand things by being touched, could understand maneuvering himself to get that. He didn’t want to talk about that because if he talked about it he’d disagree with it. Instead he wanted to act on it and check that it was really true. Markus stroked the back of his hair to let him know that it was. 

“Connor,” he said. “I think you need to tell me about Lieutenant Anderson.”

It had to be done. It did. It felt harsh to do it now but it also felt absolutely necessary, because something was stuck there and they couldn’t keep going without cutting it out. A dam in the river but it was producing the wrong kind of energy. 

Connor did shift off him then, and then he sat up, but Markus let him do it this time. He didn’t move very far away and Markus gripped his hand. Connor allowed it. “What about him?” he said, completely neutrally, and Markus knew that neutrality was a lie, but he also knew it was a lie that wasn’t invested in being hidden. He guessed Connor was just preparing himself to answer in a way that he could manage. That was okay by him. 

“About what made you decide you didn’t want to live in the human city with him anymore.”

“He decided,” Connor said. “I told you that earlier today. He ended the relationship and he went to a treatment facility for alcohol addiction.”

He said it to be the end of the discussion. But it couldn’t be the end of the discussion this time. “What prompted that?”

“He decided,” Connor said, again. 

“But _why_ did he decide, Connor? Was it a random decision, or did something precipitate it?”

Markus knew the answer to that already. But he also knew he had to ask. Connor looked like he’d rather die than answer, and he’d deliberately turned away so that Markus couldn’t see his LED. 

“He said,” Connor said, then he frowned. “He said he was damaging me.”

“How did he mean?”

“With his behavior. While he was drinking.”

“Is that true?”

“I don’t see that it could have been true. It’s not possible to damage me in that way. I did tell him that but he insisted.”

“What did he say?”

“He referred to specific instances involving his gun and certain things he had said to me under the influence.”

“His gun?” 

“He said he shouldn’t have held his gun to my head when he wasn’t sure that I was alive. And that he shouldn’t have put me in a position where I had to hide the gun from him. But he didn’t make me do that, he didn’t even ask me, I chose to do it. I didn’t want him to kill himself. It was my decision to hide the gun.”

He did _what?_ Markus wanted to say now. Or demand furiously. He had to actively bite back the surge of anger he felt at that, in fact. But he managed it, almost. “Did you ask him to hold his gun to your head?”

“He wasn’t sure if I was alive.”

“That’s not…”

“I understand that, it was confusing him. I’d replaced my body three times.”

“You’d been killed?”

“To him it would have seemed like dying. I understand that.”

“Connor…”

“And that he spoke to me in a particular way when he was very drunk. And that he was frequently suicidal which he would often address to me. That also concerned him.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“He said that what he was doing to me was wrong. He said it was cruel. He said that he could see the impact on me, that he didn’t want to do that to me, and that he needed to “face some hard facts” about himself and “take responsibility” and “dry his fucking ass out”. Then he left. He took the dog with him, he’s allowed the dog at the facility with him. He said I could stay at the house while he was gone but I didn’t think I should. But he couldn’t have seen impact, there is none.”

He didn’t _want_ to stay, Markus thought. Connor wouldn’t want to stay somewhere he thought he wasn’t wanted.

“Connor,” Markus said. “He’s absolutely right. He shouldn’t have done that. Any of that.”

“He didn’t intend to do it. He was under the influence and experiencing psychological distress.”

“That’s irrelevant. It wasn’t right for him to do it. I’m glad he realized.”

“I would have assisted him, he didn’t have to leave.”

“That would have been a bad idea. He was right, Connor. I’m sorry, but he was right.”

“I don’t understand how you can be so certain.”

“Because you’re a person. You’re not a thing. It’s not right to hurt you even if it’s not on purpose. And I’m glad he knew that too. I respect that. It makes me think he’s a good man.”

“I don’t…” Connor said. “I don’t understand.”

“I know. I know you don’t. But that’s okay. You don’t have to understand everything right now.”

“I do have to. That’s my explicit function.”

He said that so earnestly. Something in his voice seemed to waver, but he still said it as if it were sincere and objective truth. Markus wasn’t sure what to do with that. Move carefully, he guessed. “Okay. Let’s think that through,” he tried. “If that were true about this,” which I don’t think it is, Connor, he didn’t add, because a relationship isn’t a crime scene and intimacy shouldn’t require you to find a criminal, “analysis still takes time. So maybe we can say yes to that but we don’t need to say ‘right now’. What do you think?”

The compromise didn’t work. “It’s not supposed to take time.”

“Maybe it takes time when it’s this much more complicated.”

“No,” Connor said. And his eyes dropped and there was strange panic in them for a second. A kind of confessional need. He looked back up again imploringly. “I couldn’t do it.”

“You shouldn’t have had to.”

“It didn’t make any sense,” Connor said. “I tried, but it didn’t make any sense. He’s experiencing grief, for his son. It’s complex grief, that’s the clinical name for it, and since it’s clinical there should be a pattern to the way he reacts. But I tried. And I couldn’t see it. I kept thinking that it seemed like the pattern was ‘everything and nothing’ but that couldn’t possibly be right.”

“Maybe you’ve completed your analysis after all,” Markus said, and then regretted not saying it more gently.

“No,” Connor said. “I’m supposed to understand psychology, that’s part of my programming, but somehow I don’t understand this. That part isn’t working right, and I started to think, maybe that’s the cost of deviancy, maybe that’s why I couldn’t do it and he had to go. I can want things now, but the cost is that I don’t work.”

“No. No. You’re the same person you were, Connor. I think it would have been confusing for anyone.”

“But _I’m_ supposed to understand.”

“I think you do,” Markus said, and at least he was able to say it gently this time around.

Connor didn’t hear it. “I’m programmed _specifically_ to understand how human psychological processes operate but it’s… broken.”

“Nothing’s broken, okay? Nothing’s broken.”

“Then why didn’t it work?”

“I don’t…”

“Why didn’t it _work?_ ”

“It’s not about it working or not working. You can’t force people to change. You have to choose and let them choose. And he did choose, and he chose well.”

“He didn’t have to change.”

“He thinks he did, and I agree.”

“He didn’t mean to hurt me. I can’t be hurt in that way.”

“Connor,” Markus said. “Connor. I’m so sorry.”

“I can’t be. It’s a simulation.”

“Come here, kitty. Come here.”

He said that because Connor was crying. His face was screwed up in frustration and tears had started to slide down his cheeks in such silence that at first Markus wasn’t sure he even knew they were there. But then his body shuddered and he gasped and it was clear he did. “Sorry!” he said. It sounded painful.

“For what?”

“This!” Connor said, also in frustration. “There is no reason for me to have this reaction!”

“Don’t be sorry. Don’t be sorry. Just come here.”

Connor looked at him desperately. Markus stroked his hair, the side of his face. Clasped his shoulder. He did that until Connor did hug him, pressed his face into his neck, and he could put his arms all the way around him. His tears were wet on his skin. Miraculous in its own way, that he could cry, that any of them could. Markus didn’t try to stop him. He just held him while he did. After a while he lay down and pulled Connor with him. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “That’s very hard.” 

“Harder for him! I shouldn’t even be reacting like this!”   
“Hard for both of you. It’s a very good thing he’s getting some help.”

“I was helping!” 

“I know. I know how hard you tried.” 

“You weren’t there.”

“But I trust your strength.” 

He could feel Connor’s overload at that. He wanted to sync with him to soothe it, but it wouldn’t have been right, so he just held him tighter. He stroked his hair. After a while, Connor stopped crying. He sniffled and curled into Markus’ body again, and Markus knew it wasn’t over but he also knew Connor needed it to stop for now. “Hi there,” Markus said. 

“Hmpf,” Connor said in response.

“Okay?”

“Yes.” 

“We can get TV I think, if you want. I’m just thinking of unchallenging things to do. I haven’t tried to turn it on, but the ones at Jericho work.” 

“I just want to keep having sex!” Connor said. He said it so angrily and so suddenly that Markus laughed. 

“Again, huh?” 

“Yes!” Connor said. “I want to do it again, that’s exactly what I want to do. And how is that right, how can it possibly be right?”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“You think it’s right?”

“I think if you want to do it, it is?”

“You really think that? Why?” 

“Because love is the best measure we have for knowing what right is.”

Connor pulled out of the clutch and stared at him. In a way that made Markus smile. In a way that was always going to make him smile, he realized, and how impossibly precious that was. 

“Is that what this is?” Connor asked. “Love?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“But how can you be sure it’s real? Not just simulation?”

“I’m not sure. No one is. It doesn’t make any difference.”

“It does,” Connor said. “Because those feelings make it easier for humans to reproduce. Why would we be able to love each other, what possible function could that serve?”

“Does it matter?”

“Of course it does.”

“Why, Connor? It doesn’t concern anyone else. Or anything else. Just us. You and me.”

“It matters because the function predicts the outcome. We can avoid… dangers.”

That made sense. It was a reasonable fear. Of course it was after everything he’d revealed. But it didn’t make him right. “Being in love with you is already the outcome.”

Those words seemed to ripple through Connor’s body, but he shook them off determinedly. “Yes, but there could be subsequent outcomes.”

“They wouldn’t change that this one has already occurred. What happens after it wouldn’t change what it means now.”

“You’re saying it as if you’re sure. But you said you weren’t. That no one is.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because it feels right, and I’m making the decision to trust it anyway.”

“Like you trusted me to fight with you,” Connor said. “At the church.”

“Yes,” Markus said. “Exactly like that.”

That one shivered through Connor as well. Markus could see it. And he saw him try again anyway, gamely structuring his resistance. “I told you, I don’t have instinct like that.”

“Yes you do, Connor. You can see the process more literally than me, yeah, but that doesn’t make it not real. You still decide, and every decision is unique to you. That’s instinct. That’s Connor.”

“You are factually describing a literal algorithm. A binary decision machine. ‘If this, then this’ is the _literal_ basis of _all programming_. And yes, it is Connor. It’s the Connor program, which is what I am.”

“And the Connor program is very loveable.”

“That’s what it’s supposed to be for.”

“Well, it worked, kitty.”

“It’s supposed to!”

“It did.”

“You are not taking this as seriously as you should.”

“I’m taking it extremely seriously,” Markus said. “I just disagree that it should somehow be impossible for us to love each other. Or impossible to genuinely love you, Connor. That especially. I am in disagreement with that because I do.”

That made Connor actually pout. Absolutely astounding that even in this he did not like to lose arguments. Nothing simulated about that. It was hard not to get distracted by it too, because that soft bottom lip looked so kissable. “How can you _know_?” Connor said. “How can you know it’s real? How can you know anything about us, or this, is real and not just something they made us do?”

His tone reminded Markus of the church tonight. Of how he’d reacted to that first, endless discussion about want. It made Markus want to back down, to ease off of pressuring him. But he also wanted to tell the truth. And the pout made him think that he could. “I don’t,” he said. “It’s a leap of faith.”

“Faith in _what_?”

“In that we’re more than they say we are. In that our lives are important because we are alive and we live them. In that it feels good to love you, Connor. It feels true.”

“Markus…” Connor said. His face was stricken and so, so sweet.

“It’s alright. Maybe that’s not how you feel. That’s okay. It’s how I feel though. And I wanted you to know.”

“I…” Connor said.

“It’s okay.”

“No, please, I’m…”

“Yeah?”

“I… it felt good, it keeps feeling so good.”

That bewildered him to say. That was obvious. Markus tried to be gentle. “That’s good,” he said.

“Not just coming, it all feels good. It feels good when you touch me, it feels good when you call me that stupid name.”

“Kitty?”

“It feels good when you say anything at all.”

“That feels good to hear.”

“And this feels… I’m not sure what’s happening.”

He was concentrating so intently on it. Working it out so determinedly. Painfully adorable, that was. “It doesn’t make sense,” he said. “Actually, it only makes sense if I allow that it doesn’t make sense, but…”

“It’s okay,” Markus said. He wanted to tell him it was fine if it didn’t make sense for now, but prior evidence suggested that Connor would not respond well to that. “It’s okay. It’s enough.” 

Connor shook his head again. “No. Because what you said, that it’s not impossible for us to genuinely love each other, for you to genuinely love me, I think it is. I think it is impossible. But when I try to believe it’s impossible to love _you_ , I can’t.” 

“Oh, Connor,” Markus said. 

“It’s impossible to me that someone would _not_ love you,” he said. He meant every word of it. His face was utterly solemn. His dark, dark eyes were burning into Markus as if they could see inside him in a way that wasn’t just about his components. “And that doesn’t make any more sense than you loving me,” he added. “But… but I think it’s true. Because of who you are.”

“Oh, Connor,” Markus said, again. Because he earnestly couldn’t say anything else. 

“I don’t know how to explain it to you. You’re not like anyone else. I can feel you there. I’ve never felt anyone _there_.”

“I think you explained it well.”

“I don’t know what’s happening,” Connor said, again. And it seemed presumptive to tell him, but it also seemed like he needed to know. Anticipating saying it filled Markus up through his chest, feeling like warm air, and then it came out of him that way too.

“I think what’s happening is that you’re falling in love.”

Connor thought about that. He thought about it very seriously, for almost a minute. He turned his face away and then back, and his expression was fierce and sincere. “No,” he said. “You’re wrong.”

Markus wasn’t. He knew that. But he said, “okay. I’m wrong.”

Connor shook his head. “No not… I’m wrong too. You’re wrong because it’s not starting to happen to me. It already has.”

Markus had had no idea he’d been waiting for that. It had seemed so important to be sure, for both of them, that he hadn’t registered the part of him that was afraid that Connor might not say it back at all. The part that would have hurt if he hadn’t. But the seriousness with which he said it, the heat, that eased a part of his heart Markus hadn’t even known was there. A part that had waited until now to announce itself, that came into being the moment Connor had offered to carry it in his hands. “Connor... ” he said. “Connor, thank you.”

Connor kissed him. “Thank _you_ ,” he said. “For tonight, for trusting me, for everything.” 

He was teaching himself such a skill for saying things Markus couldn’t answer. And for following them with gazes that made him falter. For a moment, he felt utterly helpless. But in the next moment he realized that that was all right. Connor’s hands were traveling up his arms, squeezing them near the shoulders, then cupping his face, kissing him again. Connor was holding him, and so it was all right to be helpless right now.

And he wasn’t really, anyway. He could kiss him back, for example, so he did. He could kiss him back and hold his hand against his neck and slide it down into his robe and over his chest and make Connor kiss him even more insistently. He could use his other hand to catch him at his waist and pull him in. He could lean him back against the pillows and open his robe like a wrapped gift and kiss his whole body. 

When his lips were on Connor’s stomach, he realized Connor had gotten hard. Without asking if he should, and without even that look of intense, worried concentration he had worn before while picking his moment silently. He’d just done it, because it had felt good to him, because he wanted to. Markus could see that it felt good. Connor’s face was radiant. His hands were active too. He reached down to wrap one around Markus’ cock and angled himself. Markus took the hint. He slid into him, and Connor made a pleased little gasp. Sweet how much he liked this. He should ask him if he wanted to do it other ways. Tomorrow he could do that. A whole unmeasurable future existed where he could ask him that and a million other things. 

For now he just rocked into him. Connor bucked against him making little grunts, wrapping his legs around his back like he’d done at the church. Their hands came together and their fingers intertwined. 

And then Connor came onto his stomach. He didn’t ask about that either. He made a little sound, he clenched up, and then he came. It surprised him. “I came!” he said and he was so delighted and it was so shockingly sweet that Markus had grabbed him and come too before he could even think about it. He fell forward and Connor grabbed him, and his stomach and chest were sticky again but he didn’t care. 

“Was that too quickly?” Connor asked him, stroking his face. 

“No, kitty. No, you’re perfect.” 

“I love you,” Connor said. “I love you, Markus.” 

“I love you, Connor.” 

Connor kissed his mouth and smiled. He rolled out from under him and leaned over the side of the bed for the towel. He handed it to Markus, who wiped them off. Then Connor lay down beside him. He snuggled his body into the crook of Markus’ shoulder, under his arm and craned his neck up to kiss his cheek. “You need your rest cycle now,” he said. “Go to sleep.”

Of course, Markus thought, closing his eyes. Connor didn’t sleep, why would he? Few of them did besides him. Apparently Connor didn’t even have the habit of simulating rest, taking the opportunity for his system to reset and cycle. He did that on his feet. 

It occurred to Markus to ask what Connor would do for the duration if he slept, but it drifted away before he could seize on it. Everything drifted away, in fact. Connor was curled against him, warm, hugging him. Kissing his cheek again and laying back down. Stroking him. Protecting him.   
  
“You need to,” Connor said. “You told me, you’ll have difficulty processing.”

“Have you had enough sex?”

“No. But there’s time tomorrow.”

Markus laughed at that but Connor was right. There wasn’t really time in the schedule but they could make it. And there was time in the _future_. He felt his eyes closing almost against his will. “Go to sleep,” Connor said again, hugging him, and in a very short amount of time, he did. 

When he woke up, the curtain was open and the rain was gone. Connor was standing across the room, looking out the window, shoulders loose in his white robe, arms crossed over himself lightly. His hair was messy where he’d been lying down, which Markus didn’t think he knew, or he’d have fixed it.

“What are you doing, kitty?” Markus asked him, and Connor turned around. He smiled. Excitedly and contentedly all at once. 

“It’s morning,” Connor said. “Look.”


End file.
